China industrial firms' April profits fall 4.3% y-o-y

[BEIJING] Profits at China's industrial firms in April fell 4.3 per cent year-on-year to 478.1 billion yuan (S$95 billion), the statistics bureau said on Wednesday.

The decline follows a 34.9 per cent slump in March.

For the first four month, industrial firms' profits fell 27.4 per cent on an annual basis to 1.26 trillion yuan.

Liabilities at industrial firms rose 6.2 per cent on year at end-April, versus a 5.4 per cent growth as of end-March.

China's economy has shown patchy signs of recovery as it reopens from tough virus containment measures that led to weeks of near paralysis.

However, pressure on earnings is expected to continue amid soft domestic consumption and investment as well as mounting employment strains.

REUTERS