China's December industrial profits fall for 2nd straight month; full-yr up 10.3%

[BEIJING] Profits notched up by China's industrial firms declined 1.9 per cent from a year earlier to 680.8 billion yuan (S$136.4 billion) in December, the statistics bureau said on Monday.

For the full-year of 2018, industrial profits increased 10.3 per cent on an annual basis to 6.64 trillion yuan, versus the 11.8 per cent gain in the January-November period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on its website.

Chinese industrial firms' liabilities rose 5.2 per cent from a year earlier to 64.1 trillion yuan by end-2018, compared with a 5.8 per cent rise as of end-November.

China reported its weakest annual economic growth in 28 years earlier this month, highlighting rising downward pressure faced by the world's second-largest economy as it tries to resolve a bruising trade dispute with the United States.

REUTERS