According to the quarterly financial report issued by Hunan-based Hualing Steel, in Q1 2010 the Chinese steel producer registered a sales revenue of RMB 12.244 billion, up 22.12 percent year on year. However, the company registered a loss of RMB 275 million for the quarter, marking a slight improvement compared with a loss of RMB 386 million in the same period of last year.
The loss in the first quarter of 2010 was somewhat unexpected considering that the company had managed to turn a profit of RMB 120 million in the fourth quarter of 2009. In its report, Hualing Steel attributed the first quarter loss to the slowness of increases in steel prices in comparison with the strong hikes in raw material prices.