Overseas companies see narrowing profit slides last month

Overseas-invested companies in China reported narrowing profit declines in recent weeks, and small and medium-sized enterprises’ profitability was stable, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Sunday.

The new data reflected the effectiveness of government policies to stabilize economic growth, particularly those measures aimed at supporting small companies and firms’ overseas production in the face of domestic coronavirus flare-ups.

According to the NBS, China’s above-scale industrial enterprises reported profits of 6.97 trillion yuan ($973 billion) in the first 10 months, down 3 percent year-on-year.

Companies from overseas including Hong Kong, Macao and the Taiwan island earned profits of 1.66 trillion yuan during the period, down 7.6 percent. The decline largely narrowed from 9.3 percent drop in the first nine months.

The profitability of small- and medium-sized enterprises was stable in October. In the first 10 months this year, their profits grew 1.4 percent on a yearly basis, compared with 1.5 percent in the first nine months.

Chen Jia, an independent analyst, told the Global Times on Sunday that the improving situation mostly reflected the launch of the government’s pro-growth policies that seem to have helped those companies overcome difficulties.

Zhu Hong, a NBS senior statistician, said that judging from the statistics, China’s industrial structure continued to improve, and some medium-sized and downstream firms’ profits saw a rebound. Next year, China will push full implementation of a package of pro-growth policies and follow-up measures to propel the country’s overall economy.