Weak demand hits industrial companies’ profits
Print Edition
CHINA’S industrial companies saw a 2.3 percent fall in profits last year, compared to 2014’s 3.3 percent rise, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
Their net earnings amounted to 6.35 trillion yuan (US$965 billion) last year, with a notable slowdown in industries involved in raw materials, refinery and mining, bureau figures showed. In December alone, profits fell 4.7 percent to 816.7 billion yuan, compared to the cut of 1.4 percent in November.
He Ping, a bureau researcher, said weak demand at both home and abroad, along with high operational costs, was to blame.
“Despite the general profit loss, China has made significant progress in industrial upgrading, with profits of high-tech manufacturing increasing 8.9 percent, consumer goods manufacturing rising 7 percent, and machinery equipment up 4 percent,” he said.
State-owned industries were the poorest performers, making a profit of 1.09 trillion yuan which represented a slump of 21.9 percent compared to 2014. In comparison, private companies’ profits were 2.32 trillion yuan, up 3.7 percent.
Overseas-invested companies reported profits down 1.5 percent to 1.6 trillion yuan.
Of the 41 industrial sectors being tracked, profits rose in 29 while the remaining 12 reported declines, the bureau said.
The latest figures also showed continued signs of economic weakness with the growth of industrial production moderating in December.
Factories said their output expanded 5.9 percent last month, down from November’s 6.2 percent increase.
The official Purchasing Managers’ Index, a gauge of comprehensive operational conditions in the state-owned manufacturing sector, landed at 49.7 in December, up from 49.6 a month earlier but remaining weak and pointing at contracted activities in the sector.
Meanwhile, the Producer Price Index, a factory-gate gauge of inflation, declined 5.9 percent from a year earlier last month, extending negative growth for the 46th consecutive month.
China’s gross domestic product grew 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter, concluding 2015 with a rate of 6.9 percent, the slowest annual expansion in a quarter of a century.
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