China: Industrial firms' profits decline 4.3% y-o-y in Jan-Oct'24

• Decline in gross profits shrinks m-o-m in Oct'24
  
  
• Steel sector logs profits in Oct, 1st time this year
  
  

Mysteel Global: Profits of major Chinese industrial enterprises declined 4.3% y-o-y during January-October 2024 to RMB 5.87 trillion ($809 billion), according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Wednesday.

In October alone, gross profits fell 10% y-o-y. However, the pace of decline slowed significantly, narrowing by 17.1 percentage points compared to the y-o-y plunge in September, the NBS data showed.

Yu Weining, a statistician with the NBS, attributed the reduced decline last month to the combined effects of existing policies and new stimulus measures from the Chinese government, which started to yield sustained results.

Encouragingly, Yu highlighted that the Chinese steel sector returned to profitability in October for the first time this year. Profits for the steel sector last month surged 80.1% y-o-y, reflecting improved market conditions as macroeconomic policies took effect.

Nonetheless, China's steelmaking industry continued to incur losses over January-October, with the cumulative deficit reaching RMB 23.3 billion. However, the loss narrowed compared to the RMB 34.1 billion recorded in the first nine months, Mysteel Global observed.

On the other hand, among the 41 industrial sectors tracked, the electric power and heat production and supply sector led in gross profits for the first ten months with RMB 549.7 billion, up 13.8% y-o-y. The computer, telecommunications, and other electronic devices sector ranked second, with profits of RMB 514.9 billion, logging an increase of 8.4% y-o-y.

The non-ferrous smelting and processing sector recorded the highest growth rate among all profit-making sectors, as its profits during the past ten months surged 40% y-o-y to RMB 257.9 billion. This far outpaced the upstream non-ferrous mining and processing sector, which achieved gross profits of RMB 79.1 billion, up 21.6% y-o-y.

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