China’s industrial giants remain under pressure as profits continue to decline

Profits at China’s big industrial firms continued to collapse in the first four months of the year under pressure from the economic damage caused by the coronavirus outbreak, reported the South China Morning Post.

Industrial firms saw profits fall by 27.4% over the first four months of 2020.

This was a further slight improvement from the 36.7% drop over the first three months, and the record 38.3% decline from a year ago in the first two months of 2020. In April, profits at China’s big industrial firms fell 4.3%.

On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Finance confirmed profits at China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) fell 63% year on year in the first four months of 2020. This followed a decline of 59.7% in the first quarter of the year, the official data showed.