In the first quarter of 2025, profits for China's industrial companies increased by 0.8% year on year, reaching CNY 1,509.36 billion. This marks a turnaround from a 0.3% decline observed in the initial two months of the year, thanks to additional stimulus efforts from the Beijing government. Profits for enterprises with foreign investment—as well as those linked to Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan—saw a growth of 2.8%, while joint-stock enterprises experienced a modest profit increase of 0.1%. However, the private sector faced a slight profit decrease of 0.3%, albeit an improvement compared to a substantial 9.0% drop in the prior period. In contrast, state-owned enterprises saw their profits dip by 1.4%, a shift from the 2.1% gain noted earlier.
Across various industries, agriculture recorded a substantial profit increase of 40.3%, followed by non-ferrous metal smelting at 33.6%, heat production at 6.1%, general manufacturing at 9.5%, special equipment at 14.2%, textiles at 7.1%, computer and communications at 3.3%, and electrical machinery at 7.5%. On the downside, coal mining profits plunged by 47.7%, non-metallic minerals fell by 14.2%, automobiles dropped by 6.2%, chemicals showed a marginal decline of 0.4%, and the oil and gas extraction sector saw a decrease of 3.1%.
