China’s industrial profits rose 4.8 per cent in last 2 months

Despite concerns over economic slowdown in the world’s second largest economy, China’s industrial profits rose 4.8 per cent year on year in the first two months of 2016, reversing last year’s downward trend, according to official data released today.

Profits at industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan (about USD 3.1 million) totalled 780.7 billion yuan during the January-February period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The profits registered a 4.7 per cent year-on-year fall in December and a 2.3 per cent annual decrease in 2015.

He Ping, an official with the NBS department of industry, attributed the latest profit growth to increased sales and a milder decline in factory product prices.

In the first two months, revenues from the firms’ primary business climbed 1 per cent year on year, improving from a 0.6 per cent drop in December and a 0.8 per cent increase for last year.

In the January-February period, China’s producer price index, which measures the prices of goods at the factory gate, slipped 5.1 per cent year on year, narrowing from a drop of 5.9 per cent in December and 5.2 per cent for 2015, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Chinese government has initiated a host of reforms to halt the economic slowdown as the GDP slipped to 6.9 per cent last year, lowest in 26 years.

China fixed this year’s target for GDP at 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent.

Earlier data released on March 25 said profits of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) slumped to USD 34.2 billion in the first two months of this year.

SOEs saw combined profits decelerated to 14.2 per cent year on year in the Jan-Feb period to 222.6 billion yuan (USD 34.2 billion) to data from the Ministry of Finance, a much sharper drop than the 6.7-per cent fall recorded for 2015, data released by the Ministry of Finance said.

The Chinese economy, the world’s second-largest, last year slowed down to 6.9 per cent, the lowest in 26 years.