Industrial Profits Return to Robust Growth

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Chinese industrial profits saw robust growth for the first four months of 2017, with enterprise productivity indices also posting improvements.

The latest data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics indicates that industrial enterprises saw year-on-year growth in total profits of 24.4% for the first four months of the year.

This is the fastest rate of industrial profit growth posted for the same period in five years.

“Slowing of industrial profit growth was a rational return the previous period of high growth,” said NBS industrial analyst He Ping. “Looking at things in general, at present industrial profits are still maintaing excellent growth”

Year-on-year profit growth was 14% in April, significantly ahead of levels seen during the past several years. During the period from 2012 -2016 annual industrial profit growth was 5.3%, 12.2%, 3.3%, -2.3% and 8.5%, all well below the expansion logged in April.

Various enterprise productivity indices also continued to improve, with industrial enterprise main business profit rate rising by 0.1 percentage points year-on-year in April to reach 5.79%, and the average accounts receivable collection period falling by 1 day year-on-year to 38.4 days.

The contribution made by price factors to profit growth fell, with consumer and hi-tech manufacturing instead providing strong support.