witnessed large Chinese industrial companies A further decline in gross profit in the period between January and October with the increase in the spread of Covid-19 and the imposition of new restrictions by cities to combat the virus, including closures in certain places, which negatively affected economic activities.
Data from the Office for National Statistics published today, Sunday, showed that industrial profits fell 3% in the first ten months of 2022 on an annual basis, compared to a decline of 2.3% in the January-September period.
The statistics bureau has not released numbers for each month independently since July. Profits fell in 22 out of 41 large industrial sectors in China.
“Recent outbreaks of local epidemic infection are recurring, recession risks in the global economy are intensifying, and industrial enterprises are facing greater pressure,” the office said in a statement.
The bleak data for the world’s second-largest economy reflected a debt crisis in the real estate sector and a sharp slowdown in consumer spending.
The industrial sectors that witnessed the sharpest declines were oil, coal and fuel, whose profits declined by 70.9% compared to 67.7% in the first nine months of the year.
Even some of the sectors that witnessed strong earnings growth suffered a significant slowdown in the pace of this growth.
Some analysts now believe that China’s gross domestic product will contract in the current quarter compared to the third quarter, and have lowered their forecasts for next year, expecting the path of resuming economic activities as usual to be slow and difficult.
The industrial profit data covers large enterprises with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan from major operations.
