Industrial profits edge lower in first eight months
China's major industrial firms saw their profits retreating in the first eight months from a year earlier, according to official data.
Profits of companies with an annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan (US$2.8 million) slipped 1.7 percent year on year in the period from January to August to 4.016 trillion yuan, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Friday.
Taking into account factors such as adjustments to the statistical system, enhanced enforcement of statistics, elimination of duplicate data, reforms of enterprises, and the fourth national economic census, the decline in January-August was flat with the first seven months, the bureau said.
For the single-month figure, major industrial profits shed 2 percent in August year on year to 517.79 billion yuan, mainly due to handicaps including slower growth in industrial production and sales, an extending drop in producer prices, and the super typhoon, according to Zhu Hong, a senior statistician at the bureau.
State-owned enterprises posted profits down 8.6 percent year on year to 1.21 trillion yuan in the first eight months. Profits of joint-stock companies remained flat at 2.96 trillion yuan, while those of foreign-funded companies fell 5.8 percent to 978.96 billion yuan.
Private companies, however, maintained robust growth of 6.5 percent in industrial profits, which totaled 1.13 trillion yuan. Small-sized enterprises also saw profits soaring 10.3 percent from a year earlier.
The mining sector recorded a total profit of 380.74 billion yuan, up 2.1 percent year on year. Profits of the manufacturing sector added up to 3,304.50 billion yuan, down 3.2 percent, while the power, heating, gas and water production and supply sector posted overall profits jumping 11 percent to 331.11 billion yuan.
Zhu highlighted the improving profit growth in main industries such as automobiles, electronics and non-ferrous metals. Despite that profits in the automobile and electronics industries in the eight months decreased by 19 percent and 2.7 percent respectively, the decline was 4.2 and 3.6 percentage points narrower than in the January-July period. The non-ferrous metal industry, meanwhile, saw profits surging by 9.7 percent in January-August year on year, 3.7 percentage points faster than the first seven months.
Profit growth in the equipment manufacturing industry, high-tech manufacturing industry and strategic emerging industries all picked up to varying degrees.
From January to August, equipment manufacturing profits fell 0.7 percent year on year, narrowing 2.2 percentage points from the January-July period, while high-tech manufacturing and strategic emerging industries saw their profits rise 2.8 percent and 3 percent, respectively; 1.6 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points faster than January-July.
The overall leverage ratio continued to fall, with the debt-to-asset ratio of major industrial enterprises down 0.5 percentage points from a year earlier to 56.8 percent at the end of August; among which the ratio for state-owned enterprises was 58.4 percent, 0.9 percentage points lower than the same period last year.