Posted on 27 Jul 2023
For the first half of 2023, China's sizable industrial firms saw their gross profits decrease by 16.8% on year to total Yuan 3.39 trillion ($475 billion), according to the latest release by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday morning.
The pace of decline was slower by 2 percentage points than that in the first five months, indicating profits of industrial enterprises across China have been recovering steadily, NBS notes.
For June alone, these industrial firms' gross profits amounted to Yuan 719.8 billion, down by 8.3% on year, narrowing further from the 12.6% and 18.2% on-year drops recorded in May and April, the data found.
In this year's first half, 12 of the country's 41 industrial sectors posted on-year gains in profits, while 29 experienced profit declines on a year basis, according to NBS.
"More than 70% of the country's industrial sectors saw their profits in H1 improve from the first quarter of this year, with manufacturing sectors' profitability recovering significantly," said Sun Xiao, a statistician with the NBS.
Within the 41 sectors, the coal mining and washing sector ranked the top in terms of gross profits, totalling Yuan 412.8 billion in the first six months, down 23.3% on year. It was followed by the electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing sector whose profits stood at Yuan 283.1 billion, rising by 29.1% on year.
China's steelmakers & fabricators and the upstream mining sector both showed on-year slumps in profits during H1, with the former plunging by 97.6% on year to Yuan 1.9 billion, and the latter sliding by 42% on year to Yuan 23.1 billion.
As for the country's nonferrous smelters and fabricators, they posted a 44% on-year decline in profits to Yuan 83.6 billion in H1, while the nonferrous mining and processing sector saw its profits nudge down by 0.5% on year to Yuan 38.3 billion.
Source:Mysteel Global
