China's industrial profits fall sharply in April

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday, China's industrial profits for the first four months were CNY1.84 trillion, up 6.5% y/y but 0.9 percentage point lower than Q1. While China's state firms' profits dropped 8.4 percent in the January to April period.

The coal mining industry saw profits down as much as 92.2% during the first four months. Product inventories at industrial firms fell 1.2 percent year on year at end April, the first drop in recent years, the statistics bureau noted.

For April alone, China's industrial profits were CNY502 billion, up 4.2% y/y, but 6.9 percentage points lower than that of March.