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China Industrial Profit Growth Slows as Factory Inflation Eases

Industrial profits in China rose 14.9% in November from a year earlier.

China Industrial Profit Growth Slows as Factory Inflation Eases
Sparks fly on a production line at the Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. Ltd. (GAC) plant in Guangzhou, China. (Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Profit growth at Chinese industrial firms slowed in November as producer prices rebound appeared to soften.

Industrial profits rose 14.9 percent last month from a year earlier, compared with previously reported 25.1 percent in October, the statistics bureau said on Wednesday.

Robust demand and consistent factory inflation have lifted profitability this year. That helps manufacturers pay off their debt and invest more as real corporate borrowing costs decline. Still, as factory-gate prices softens, profit growth may also be due to slow.

"Official year-over-year industrial profits growth is set to revert lower, but growth in reality should also trend down as we think the increase in PPI inflation has peaked," economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics Ltd. wrote in a recent report.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Yinan Zhao in Beijing at yzhao300@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey Black at jblack25@bloomberg.net, Jeff Kearns, Karl Lester M. Yap

©2017 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Yinan Zhao