In the January-July period of the year, of the 41 industrial sectors in China, 29 witnessed year-on-year increases in gross profit, while 12 saw decreases in gross profit. In the given period, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling sector and the automotive sector recorded respective gross profits of RMB 167.63 billion ($23.7 billion) and RMB 282.24 billion ($39.9 billion), declining by 25.1 percent and 23.2 percent year on year, respectively.
At the same time, the ferrous metals mining and dressing sector, the metal manufacturing sector and the railway, shipping, aerospace and other transportation equipment manufacturing sector recorded gross profits of RMB 12.92 billion ($1.8 billion), RMB 82.42 billion ($11.6 billion) and RMB 33.01 billion ($4.7 billion), up 232.1 percent, 15.8 percent and 26.5 percent year on year, respectively.
In the given period, iron ore prices have been at high levels, resulting in good performance for ferrous metals mining and dressing sector, however, the high-priced iron ore negatively affected the performance of steel smelting and rolling sector.
In the January-July period of the year, the aggregate gross profit of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in China amounted to RMB 3497.7 billion ($494.0 billion), down 1.7 percent year on year, 0.7 percentage point narrower than that recorded for January-June, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).