BEIJING -- An official gauge of business activity outside Chinese factory floors slipped to a record low in February as the country's crucial service and construction sectors were hit hard by the new coronavirus epidemic.

China's official nonmanufacturing purchasing managers index plummeted to 29.6 in February from 54.1 in January, the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday. February's reading shows deep contraction, coming in far below the 50 level, which indicates an expansion.

Among the sectors that bore the brunt of the impact are transportation, catering and tourism, as people avoided gatherings, Zhao Qinghe, an analyst with the statistics bureau, said in a statement accompanying the data release.

The subindex measuring business activity in the service sector dropped to 30.1 from 53.1 in January, while the subindex measuring construction activity declined to 26.6 in February from 59.7. The new-orders subindex for the entire nonmanufacturing sector, a measure of demand, plunged to 26.5 in February from 50.6 in January.

The nonmanufacturing PMI covers services such as retail, aviation and software as well as the real-estate and construction sectors. The data are based on the replies to monthly questionnaires sent to purchasing executives at 4,000 companies in 37 nonmanufacturing sectors.

The official manufacturing PMI, also released Saturday, tumbled to 35.7 in February from 50.0 in January.The gauge of factory activity is also a record low.

--Liyan Qi

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 28, 2020 21:35 ET (02:35 GMT)