China Corporate Profits

Profits earned by China's industrial firms rose by 10.2% yoy to CNY 914.06 billion in the first two months of the year. The latest result followed a 2.3% drop in 2023 amid further signs that economic turnaround in China gained momentum at the start of 2024 following various support measures from Beijing. Profits in state-owned companies started to recover (0.5% vs -3.4% in 2023) and those in the private sector strongly picked up (12.7% vs 2.0% ). Computer industry, communications, and other electronic equipment logged strong profits (210.9%), along with electricity (69.4%), non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling (65.5%), textile (51.1%), cars (50.1%), general equipment (20.7%), oil and natural gas (1.8%), and chemical products (0.3%). By contrast, profits fell for the coal mining and washing industry (-36.8%), non-metallic industry (-36.8%), mineral products (-32.1%), special equipment manufacturing (-17.0%), agriculture and food (-7.3%), and electrical machinery (-2.0%).