China’s industrial profits jump 83.4% in first 5 months of 2021

Beijing, Jun 27 (EFE).- The profits of China’s major industrial firms grew 83.4 percent year-on-year in the period between January and May, partly due to the effect of the comparative base, as the Asian country had remained practically paralyzed during the first three months of 2020 owing to Covid-19.

However, the data published on Sunday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed that even compared to the first five months of 2019, the industrial profits between January and May 2021 were 48 percent higher.

NBS statistician Zhu Hong partly attributed the growth to the “continued consolidation” of the results of anti-epidemic planning, “sustained recovery” in demand, and progressive improvement in the operating conditions of industrial firms.

In absolute terms, industrial income stood at 3.42 trillion yuan ($530.5 billion) during the first five months of this year.

The NBS only includes industrial companies with annual incomes above 20 million yuan in the index.

Of the 41 sector studied for the assessment, 39 registered growth in their profits during the five months, while one went from lossmaking to profitable during the period and another witnessed minor losses.

The major gains were registered by state companies, which increased their profits by 150.1 percent year-on-year, while private companies recorded a 56.3 percent jump.

The NBS highlighted the surge in the profits of the non-ferrous metal smelting and processing industry (386.7 percent), ferrous metal processing (377.1 percent), and the manufacturing of chemical products and chemical raw material (211.4 percent).

During the month of May, industrial profits grew 36.4 percent year-on-year.

However, the NBS warned that the “bases of recovery are still not solid.”

The bureau said that due to factors such as rising wholesale prices of goods, industrial profits were mainly concentrated in the extractive industries and production of raw material, a factor which drove up costs in the lower part of the production chain. EFE

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