China’s industrial profits growth slows in April amid high commodity prices

Earnings at China’s industrial firms grew at a slower pace in April, with high commodity prices and weaker performance in the consumer goods sector limiting overall profitability from manufacturing, reported Reuters.

Profits at China’s industrial firms rose 57% year-on-year in April to RMB 768.63 billion ($120.22 billion), down from 92.3% in March, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Thursday.

For the January-April period, industrial firms’ profits grew 106% from the same period a year earlier to RMB 2.59 trillion, bolstered by a virus-related plunge in activity early last year.

“The improvement of corporate performance is still uneven,” said NBS official Zhu Hong in a statement accompanying the data. “The profitability of some consumer goods industries has not yet recovered to pre-epidemic levels; coupled with the high prices of bulk commodities, this has increased the pressure on the production and operation of midstream and downstream industries.”