Chinese Industrial Profits Sinks For Third Year in a Row

Chinese industrial profits, also referred to as Chinese corporate profits, have decreased for the third year in a row, a release showed last week. Overall profits sank once more to a converted $912 billion, a decrease of 4.7 percent, for January to November of 2024. The statistic encompasses both state and private-sector companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million Yuan Renminbi ($2.7 million). Near deflation and weak domestic demand overall are putting pressure on Chinese companies, while exports are still flourishing. Still, producer prices have already been sinking, signaling oversupply and the need to lower the price at which factories sells their products to the domestic and international consumer markets.

Corporate revenues continued to grow overall, albeit at a very slow pace. The same had been true in 2023. Nevertheless, 45 percent of Chinese publicly listed companies were identified as having a falling revenue, while 40 percent had declining profits and 23 percent even reported a loss.

While China's private sector has lost ground in recent years opposite state-owned companies in terms of stock prices, it was state enterprises which struggled with profitability the most. Their profits declined by an average 8.4 percent year-on-year from January to November 2024, while private or foreign companies saw theirs decrease by just 1 percent, data shows.