China's industrial profits down 0.3% in first 2 months

The combined profit of China's major industrial enterprises went down 0.3 percent year on year in the first two months of 2025, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

Industrial firms with an annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan (US$2.79 million) saw their combined profits reach 910.99 billion yuan during this period.

In the first two months of the year, China's manufacturing sector reported a total profit of 639.51 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.8 percent. Electricity, heat, gas, and water production and supply companies achieved a total profit of 130.45 billion yuan, increasing by 13.5 percent year on year.

The mining industry reported a total profit of 141.03 billion yuan during the January-February period, a year-on-year decrease of 25.2 percent, data showed.

Meanwhile, the combined business revenue of China's major industrial firms went up 2.8 percent year on year in this period, 0.7 percentage points faster than the 2024 whole-year growth rate.

Industrial enterprises continued to see a sustained growth in revenue in the first two months of 2025, creating favorable conditions for the recovery of corporate profits, NBS statistician Yu Weining said.

Driven by supportive policies related to large-scale equipment upgrades and trade-in of consumer goods, profitability in certain industries was improved in the first two months of the year, according to Yu.

Total profit of the equipment manufacturing industry went up 5.4 percent during the January-February period, reversing a 0.2-percent drop in 2024, while that of the raw materials manufacturing sector increased by 15.3 percent, reversing a 22.9-percent decline last year.

In the first two months of 2025, the total profit of the automobile manufacturing industry rose by 11.7 percent year on year, boosted by the automobile replacement and renewal subsidy policy.

However, some industrial enterprises still face challenges in terms of production and operation, as the external environment is becoming increasingly complex, Yu said, while adding that efforts will be made to elevate domestic consumption and strengthen innovation to boost the profit recovery of industrial firms.