In the January-September period this year, of the 41 industrial sectors in China, 30 witnessed year-on-year increases in gross profit, while 11 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 197.21 billion ($27.8 billion), declining by 41.8 percent year on year. The decrease rate was 10.5 percentage points bigger than that recorded in the January-August period this year, reflecting the downtrend of the steel market and high raw material prices in September.
The automotive sector recorded gross profits of RMB 373.46 billion ($52.8 billion), 16.6 percent down year on year. For this sector, September was more a positive month, with the decrease percentage slowing from 19 percent in the first eight 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 18.79 billion ($2.7 billion), RMB 107.73 billion ($15.2 billion) and RMB 43.81 billion ($6.2 billion), up 178 percent, 10.6 percent and 22.7 percent year on year, respectively.
In the given period, high-priced iron ore exerted a negative impact on the performance of the steel smelting and rolling sector, though iron ore prices contributed to a good performance for the ferrous metals mining and dressing sector.
In the January-September period of the year, the aggregate gross profit of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in China amounted to RMB 4593.35 billion ($649.2 billion), down 2.1 percent year on year, 0.4 percentage points slower compared the declining pace recorded for the January-August period.