In the January-August period this year, of the 41 industrial sectors in China, 28 witnessed year-on-year increases in gross profit, while 13 saw decreases in gross profit, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). In the given period, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling sector recorded gross profits of RMB 181.79 billion ($25.7 billion), declining by 31.3 percent year on year. The decrease rate was 6.2 percentage points higher than in the January-July period, reflecting the downtrend in the steel market and high raw material prices in August.
The automotive sector recorded gross profits of RMB 323.69 billion ($45.8 billion), 19.0 percent down year on year. For this sector, August was more a positive month, with the decrease percentage slowing from 23.2 percent in the first seven months.
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 16.82 billion ($2.4 billion), RMB 95.86 billion ($13.6 billion) and RMB 38.85 billion ($5.5 billion), up 180.8 percent, 12.0 percent and 27.6 percent year on year, respectively.
In the given period, iron ore prices continued to be at comparatively high levels, resulting in a good performance for the ferrous metals mining and dressing sector, though the high-priced iron ore negatively affected the performance of the steel smelting and rolling sector.
In the January-August period of the year, the aggregate gross profit of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in China amounted to RMB 4016.35 billion ($567.9 billion), down 1.7 percent year on year, remaining stable compared the declining pace recorded for the January-July period.