A worker on a bicycle assembly line in east China's Jiangsu Province, July 27, 2021. /CFP
China's large industrial enterprises saw a surge in profit growth in the first half of 2021, thanks to a stable recovery in industrial demand and improving business performance.
These enterprises amassed a total profit of 4.22 trillion yuan ($651 billion) in the first half of 2021, an increase of 66.9 percent year on year and an average increase of 20.6 percent in two years, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.
The data covers companies with annual revenues of over 20 million yuan from their main operations.
The profits of upstream mining and raw material manufacturing companies recorded significant growth, NBS data showed. In the first half of the year, the average two-year growth rate of profits in the mining and raw material manufacturing industries was 16.5 percent and 35.8 percent, respectively.
Profits in the chemical, steel, and coal industries have also risen on expanding demand.
Despite improving business performance, Zhu Hong, a senior statistician at the NBS, cautioned on the high commodity prices and supply chain disruptions weighing on future profit growth.
"The unevenness in the recovery of corporate profitability still exists, and the recovery of profits of private, small and micro enterprises still lags," said Zhu.
China has moved on curbing the commodity prices rally. The country further released state reserves of copper, aluminum and zinc to continue to ensure stable prices of commodities and ease cost pressure on firms earlier this month.
