China’s industrial firms posted combined profits of 2.4 trillion yuan (US$350 billion) in the first 11 months of this year, up 4.9 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.
The figure represented a sharp decline from 36.7 percent growth in the same period last year, providing the latest evidence that the nation’s economy is quickly losing steam.
Among decliners, state-owned firms performed the worst, with total profits down 14.5 percent in January through November year-on-year to 798.5 billion yuan, the bureau said in a statement.
Profits of foreign-funded companies, including those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, fell 3.1 percent to 637.4 billion yuan for the same period.
But privately owned firms saw profits rise 36.6 percent to 549.5 billion yuan, while joint stock enterprises posted profit growth of 11.4 percent to 1.3 trillion yuan, it said.
The statement also said profits in the oil processing and refinery industry lost a combined 126 billion yuan compared with a net profit of 24.5 billion yuan a year earlier. Steel firm profits also fell 13.7 percent in the first 11 months.
The figures covered companies with annual prime operating revenue above 5 million yuan.
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