Chinese Industrial Profit Growth Continues to Slow in September

(Bloomberg) -- Profit growth in Chinese industrial enterprises slowed for a fifth month amid the ongoing U.S.-China trade spat and a weakening domestic economy.

Industrial profits rose 4.1 percent in September from a year earlier, versus a 9.2 percent increase in August. Total profits for the month were 545.5 billion yuan ($78.6 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday.

The slowdown comes as industrial output growth and factory inflation decelerated last month from a year earlier. Profit for the first nine months rose 14.7 percent from a year earlier to 4.97 trillion yuan.

“In the first nine months, 34 of 41 industrial sectors saw profit rising year-on-year,” the bureau said in a statement released with the data.

The official year-on-year growth rate for profits is increasingly being called into question this year for diverging from growth calculated from the nominal profit figures, which also come from the bureau.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Fox Hu in Hong Kong at fhu7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Stanley James at sjames8@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey

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