Profit growth at major Chinese industrial companies slowed in May, highlighting the downward pressure on China's economy.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Sunday that profit growth at industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan (3.27 million U.S. dollars) slowed to 0.6 percent year on year in May, down 2 percentage points from April.
Their profits totaled 521 billion yuan in May. In the first five months of the year, industrial profits reached 2.25 trillion yuan, down 0.8 percent year on year, the NBS said. The decline narrowed 0.5 percentage points from the rate seen in the January-April period.
State enterprises made a profit of 460 billion yuan in the first five months, down 23 percent from the same period last year. Private companies did better, with a total profit of 786 billion yuan, up 6.2 percent.
Mining industries reported a total profit of 111 billion yuan in the Jan.-May period, down an alarming 59.8 percent, while the manufacturing sector registered a profit of 1.94 trillion yuan, up 6.5 percent.
The NBS will release China's Q2 GDP figure on July 15.
