China's industrial profits return to growth

Workers are occupied on a production line at a factory in Xinzhuang industry zone in Shanghai, east China, July 30, 2015. China's economy grew by 6.9 percent in 2015. (Xinhua file photo/Pei Xin)

BEIJING, March 27 -- Profits of China's major industrial firms rose 4.8 percent year on year in the first two months of 2016, reversing the downward trend of last year, official data showed Sunday.

Profits at industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan (about 3.1 million U.S. dollars) totaled 780.7 billion yuan in the Jan.-Feb. period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The profits registered a 4.7 percent year-on-year fall in December and a 2.3 percent annual decrease in 2015.

He Ping, an official with the NBS Department of Industry, attributed the latest profit growth to increased sales and a milder decline in factory product prices.

In the first two months, revenues from the firms' primary business climbed 1 percent year on year, improving from a 0.6 percent drop in December 2015 and a 0.8 percent increase for last year.

In the Jan.-Feb. period, China's producer price index, which measures prices of goods at factory gate, slipped 5.1 percent year on year, narrowing from a drop of 5.9 percent in December and 5.2 percent for 2015.

Despite the recovery, part of the industrial profit growth was a result of the lower base in the same period of last year, He noted.

Industrial profits dipped 4.2 percent year on year in the Jan.-Feb. period of 2015, NBS data showed.

Compared with the same period of 2014, the Jan.-Feb. industrial profits of this year only inched up 0.4 percent, said He.