Profits at industrial firms in China shrank in the first nine months of the year, as Covid disruptions and a property slump continued to weigh on companies’ bottom lines, reports Bloomberg. Industrial profits in the January-to-September period fell 2.3% compared to the same time frame a year ago, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Thursday. That compared with a decline of 2.1% in the first eight months. The NBS has not released single-month data since June.
Firms continue to be affected by high costs and some businesses face operational challenges, said Zhu Hong, a senior statistician at the NBS, in a statement accompanying the data, adding that profits are still impacted by an “increasingly complicated external environment.”
Profits at foreign companies remained weak, though the declines narrowed from the January-to-August period. Those profits were down 9.3% in the first nine months, compared to a 12% drop in the first eight months.
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