Profits earned by China's largest industrial firms dropped by 1.7% year-on-year to CNY 4.01 trillion in the first eight months of 2019, the same pace as in January-July. Profits at state-owned industrial firms declined 8.6%, while those at private firms rose 6.5%. Among the 41 industries surveyed, 13 sectors saw year-on-year profit falls, including automobiles (-19%), oil processing (-53.1%), ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing (-31.3%), non-ferrous metal mining (-23.7%), and chemicals (-13.1%). Also, earnings for telecommunications and electronic equipment manufacturers, which are more vulnerable to US tariffs than other products, dropped 2.7%. In August only, industrial profits declined 2% to CNY 517.79 billion, after a 2.6% increase in July, mainly due to a slowdown in industrial production and sales growth amid ongoing trade tensions. Corporate Profits in China averaged 1656499.88 CNY Million from 1996 until 2019, reaching an all time high of 7518710 CNY Million in December of 2017 and a record low of 1617 CNY Million in February of 1998.
Corporate Profits in China is expected to be 4800000.00 CNY Million by the end of this quarter, according to Trading Economics global macro models and analysts expectations. Looking forward, we estimate Corporate Profits in China to stand at 3300000.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the China Total Industrial Profits is projected to trend around 6950000.00 CNY Million in 2020, according to our econometric models.