INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
SHANGHAI: Profits earned by Chinese industrial firms in April rose at their fastest pace in six months, data from the National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS) showed on Sunday, as factories benefited from higher prices and strong demand.
Profits in April rose 21.9 per cent
year-onyear to 576 billion yuan ($90.14 billion), the quickest since October, bringing gains for the first four months of 2018 to 15 per
that was the slowest in over a year and which government officials had blamed on the timing of the Lunar New Year holiday.
The higher April
industries and cash-strapped regional governments cut back on big investment projects, curbing demand for building materials.
Profit growth
but was much lower than 6.4 per cent in the year-ago period.
Weaker profit growth suggests companies may be reluctant to invest and hire new
staff, while making it harder for debt-laden firms to service their debt, especially state-owned enterprises that account for the bulk of
decade, but companies have also seen profit margins squeezed to their lowest level in two years.
April economic data had shown signs of
slowing momentum as investment growth touched a near 20-year low and retail sales growth weakened.
