Profits at China’s industrial firms fell at a slower pace in April, helped by improvements in automobiles and electronics, but the damage wrought by the coronavirus crisis is set to keep the economy and businesses under pressure for most of this year, reported Reuters.
Earnings fell 4.3% year-on-year to RMB 478.1 billion ($67 billion) last month, after plunging 34.9% in March, the statistics bureau said on Wednesday. For the first four months, industrial firms’ profits fell 27.4% year-on-year to RMB 1.26 trillion, compared with a 36.7% slump in the first three months.
Automobiles, special-purpose equipment, electrical machinery and electronics industries notched up significant recoveries in profits in April. Twenty three out of 41 sectors surveyed posted growth last month versus eight in March.
However, the overall profit outlook is still not optimistic as demand has still not recovered, industrial goods prices remain low, and pressure from costs are still high, Zhu Hong, an official at the statistics bureau, said in a statement. Recent data from factory activity to trade have underscored a weak outlook for China and the global economy.
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