In the first quarter this year, the aggregate gross profits of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in China amounted to RMB 1.29424 trillion ($0.21 trillion), increasing by 10.1 percent year on year, according to data released by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on April 27, with the increase rate in question 0.7 percentage points higher than that recorded in the January-February period of the current year. In March alone, the aggregate gross profits of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in China amounted to RMB 513.16 billion ($83.7 billion), increasing by 10.7 percent compared to March 2013.
Of the 41 major industrial sectors in China, in the first quarter this year 33 sectors registered year-on-year increases in gross profit, seven sectors witnessed year-on-year decreases in gross profit, while one sector saw an unchanged gross profit compared to that recorded in the same period of 2013.
In particular, in the first quarter of the current year, the aggregate gross profit of the ferrous metal mining industry in China was RMB 16.76 billion ($2.73 billion), increasing by 5.1 percent year on year. Meanwhile, the aggregate gross profit of the ferrous metal smelting and processing industry in China was RMB 18.72 billion ($3.05 billion) in the given period, decreasing by 19.9 percent year on year. The aggregate gross profit of the metal product manufacturing sector in China in the January-March period this year was RMB 35.16 billion ($5.74 billion), increasing by 15 percent year on year. In addition, in the given quarter, the total gross profit of China's automobile manufacturing sector amounted to RMB 133.13 billion ($21.7 billion), indicating a year-on-year increase of 29.8 percent, while the total gross profit of the country's railway, ship, aerospace and transportation machinery and equipment manufacturing sector increased by 21.6 percent year on year to RMB 16.38 billion ($2.67 billion).