China's economy shows a "broadening recovery" as gauges of the manufacturing and nonmanufacturing activity climbed to their highest levels in three and eight years respectively, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The official purchasing managers indexes, a key barometer of factory activity, increased to 52.1 in November, versus 51.4 a month earlier, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. The reading is the highest since September 2017.

The nonmanufacturing PMI, which includes services and construction activity, edged up to 56.4 in November, its highest level since June 2012 and compared with 56.2 in October.

There is room for China's manufacturing strength to continue in the coming months, the journal quoted Zhu Chaoping, a Shanghai-based global market strategist for JP Morgan Asset Management as saying, pointing to indicators suggesting that inventories are being depleted, which he said could lead to "a wave of restocking".

Zhu was also encouraged by a small uptick in the manufacturing PMI's employment subindex, which points to factories hiring more employees to keep up with demand.

Overall domestic consumption in China also benefited as well in November from the Singles Day online shopping event.

Sales on Alibaba's e-commerce platform Tmall exceeded 498.2 billion yuan ($76.2 billion) between Nov 1 and 11. Another e-commerce giant JD generated more than 271.5 billion yuan during the period.