Chinese industrial companies’ profit declined by 6.7% in July from a year earlier, narrowing from the 8.3% drop in the previous month, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Sunday.Â
The companies’ profit during the first seven months of the year shrank 15.5% from a year earlier to 3.94 trillion yuan, narrowing from a 16.8% drop in the first half of the year, showed the data.
China’s industrial production recovered steadily in July, industrial companies’ revenue posted marginal improvement and profit improved further, the NBS said.
In breakdown, profit in the mining sector fell 21% year over year to 782.7 billion yuan in the first seven months, profit in the manufacturing sector fell 18.4% to 2.77 trillion yuan, while profit in the utilities sector surged 38% to 391.8 billion yuan, according to the NBS.
Among the 41 major industrial sectors, 28 saw profits dive during the period, with the ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing industry reporting the deepest slump at 90.5%, it said.
Equipment manufacturing industry’s profit grew by 1.7%, 17.2 percentage points faster than the growth of overall industrial profit, and accounted for 34.6% of the total industrial profit, showed the data.
Of that, profit in the electrical machinery industry surged by 33.7% year over year in the January – July period, mainly driven by the industries of the photovoltaic equipment, lithium battery and household air conditioner.
State-owned enterprises saw profit slide 20.3% year over year in the first seven months, foreign firms fall 12.4% and private-sector companies decline 10.7%, showed the data.
Commodity prices declined in July and the pressure on raw material costs in the midstream and downstream industries has eased, the NBS said.
Industrial companies’ cost per 100 yuan revenue was 85.15 yuan in July, decreasing by 0.55 yuan from a year earlier, marking the first drop so far this year, showed NBS data
In addition, the raw material manufacturing industry’s profit fell 7.7% in July from a year earlier, narrowing sharply by 29.6 percentage points from the previous month, and of that, steel and crude oil processing industries both swung to profit last month, according to the NBS.
