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China industrial profits growing, but trade war weighs on outlook

This article is more than 12 months old

BEIJING : Profits at China's industrial firms returned to growth last month, helped by public works spending and improved margins in the petrochemical and auto sectors, but an economic slowdown and the US trade war are expected to weigh on the business outlook.

Industrial profits rose 2.6 per cent last month year-on-year to 512.7 billion yuan (S$99 billion), according to data released by the National Bureau of Statisticsyesterday, swinging from a 3.1 per cent decline in June.

Despite the turnaround in headline growth, worsening conditions for businesses exposed to global trade and smaller private sector firms are likely to add to the case for more government support to shore up slowing economic growth.

PRESSURE

"The downward pressure on the economy is relatively high, the market demand is slowing down, the prices of industrial products are falling," the statistics bureau's senior statistician, Zhu Hong, said in a statement.

For January-July, industrial firms earned profits of 3.50 trillion yuan, down 1.7 per cent from a year earlier.

That compared with a 2.4 per cent fall in the first six months. - REUTERS

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