Posted on 29 Aug 2023
China's sizable industrial firms saw their gross profits retreat by 15.5% on year to Yuan 3.94 trillion ($541 billion) over January-July, with the pace of the decline being slower by 1.3 percentage points than that during the first half of this year, according to new data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on August 27.
For July alone, Chinese industrial firms' gross profits totalled Yuan 556.1 billion, down 6.7% on year, as against the 8.3% on-year fall for June, the data showed.
"In July, industrial production recovered steadily and the linkage between production and sales improved markedly," noted Sun Xiao, a statistician with the NBS.
Over January-July, 13 of the 41 industrial sectors monitored by NBS notched up on-year gains in profits, while 28 posted on-year declines, according to the Bureau. Within the total, China's coal mining and washing sector ranked top in terms of gross profits at Yuan 466.1 billion in the past seven months. The sector witnessed a drop of 26.2% on year, however.
Meanwhile, the country's electric power and heat production and supply sector posted the highest growth of 51.2% on year over January-July to achieve total profits of Yuan 317.9 billion, the NBS data found.
China's electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing sector ranked second in terms of on-year growth in profits, with the value swelling by 33.7% to Yuan 336.3 billion during the first seven months.
In contrast, the country's steelmakers and fabricators again endured a sharp on-year decline in profits over January-July, with the total plunging by 90.5% on year to Yuan 4.96 billion. Profits for the upstream ferrous mining and processing sector also slumped 32.6% on year during the same period to Yuan 26.4 billion.
In tandem, profits earned by the nonferrous smelting and processing sector dropped by 36.7% on year to Yuan 98.96 billion, but profits among nonferrous mining and processing enterprises showed an on-year gain, edging up 1.9% on year to Yuan 44.3 billion.
Source:Mysteel Global
