Posted on 29 Sep 2023
China's sizable industrial firms saw their gross profits shrink by 11.7% on year to total Yuan 4.66 trillion ($637 billion) over January-August, as against the 15.5% on-year fall for the first seven months, according to the latest release from the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday.
For August alone, these industrial firms' gross profits totalled Yuan 711.8 billion, Mysteel Global calculated based on the NBS data, higher by 17.2% than the corresponding period last year.
"In August as a raft of pro-growth macroeconomic measures took effect, industrial production picked up steadily and the recovery of enterprises' profits quickened significantly," noted NBS statistician Yu Weining.
"Industrial firms achieved on-year growth in profits for the first time since the second half of last year," Yu was quoted as saying, citing the 17.2% on-year jump in August's profits.
The latest NBS data showed that among the 41 industrial sectors, China's coal mining and washing sector ranked top in terms of gross profits in the past eight months at Yuan 523.7 billion, though the total was lower by a huge 26.3% on year.
The electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing sector ranked the second-highest in total profits, with the value climbing 33% on year to Yuan 402.9 billion, according to the release.
Meanwhile, China's steelmaking and processing sector and nonferrous smelting and processing sector both saw their on-year decline in profits narrow over January-August, due to the increases in prices of steel and nonferrous metals and the improvement in enterprises' sales and production, Yu pointed out.
The two sectors saw their profits fall by 57.1% and 27% respectively on year during the first eight months to reach Yuan 14.8 billion and Yuan 121 billion, smaller than the on-year plunge of 90.5% and 36.7% in the prior seven months.
As for their upstream counterparts, profits earned by the country's ferrous mining and processing sector and nonferrous mining and processing sector reached Yuan 32.7 billion and Yuan 51.2 billion over January-August, down 23.8% on year and up 4% on year respectively.
Source:Mysteel Global
