BEIJING - China's economic recovery may have slowed or even gone slightly into reverse over the past month, two international banks said in separate reports.

Credit Suisse economists said economic activity appeared to have softened in the second half of April and that the trend was more pronounced in May, with weakness in the materials sector and power consumption spreading to retail sales.

'We argue that the recovery in China is still ongoing, but that the pace may not be as strong as many have hoped recently,' Dong Tao, Asia economist at Credit Suisse, said in a report.

He forecast that the Purchasing Managers' Index might slip below the watershed of 50 over the next few months, suggesting that the Chinese manufacturing sector was contracting.

Economists at Merrill Lynch said the PMI, which has been closely watched by the market as a leading economic indicator, would soften but remain above the 50-point mark, pointing to a milder expansion.

'Although manufacturing investment growth is not as strong as that of infrastructure, it has actually picked up so far this year, and we believe the momentum could be maintained for another several months,' Merrill Lynch economists Ting Lu and T.J. Bond said in a report.

'We need to factor in seasonality and focus on the big picture: the V-shape recovery of PMI,' they said, noting signs of more property transactions and faster investment growth.

They forecast that the PMI would drop to 50.2 in May, down from 53.5 in April but still well above a record low of 38.8 in November.

Ding Xuedong, vice-finance minister, said Beijing's stimulus spending had achieved initial results but the foundations for recovery were still not solid, the official China Securities Journal reported on Thursday.

'As long as we strengthen coordination between fiscal and other economic policies, China will definitely realise its target of steady and relatively fast economic development,' the newspaper cited him as saying.