Profits earned by China's largest industrial firms dropped 14 percent year-on-year to CNY 708.01 billion in January-February 2019, the steepest decline since late 2011, due mostly to price declines in key industrial sectors such as auto, oil processing, steel and chemical industries. The profit decline was also attributed to a slowdown in industrial production and sales and the timing of Lunar New Year holidays. Profits earned by state-owned enterprises slumped 24.2 percent and those by private firms decreased 5.8 percent. Among the 41 industries surveyed, 20 sectors saw year-on-year profit declines including oil, coal and other fuel processing (-70.4 pct), ferrous metal smelting and rolling processing (-59 pct); automotive (-42 pct); chemical raw materials (-27.2 pct); and coal mining (-23.2 pct). In 2018, profits earned by China's major industrial companies rose 10.3 percent from a year earlier, slowing from 2017's robust pace of 21 percent. Corporate Profits in China averaged 1622559.96 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 1720000.00 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 8200000.00 in 12 months time. In the long-term, the China Total Industrial Profits is projected to trend around 8250000.00 CNY Million in 2020, according to our econometric models.