China’s industrial profits growth picks up pace

Beijing:  Profits at China’s industrial firms rose 179 per cent year-on-year in the first two months of 2021 to 1.114 trillion yuan ($170.31 billion), official data showed on Saturday.

That compared with a 20.1 per cent on-year increase seen in December and a 38.3 per cent on-year slump in the first two month of 2020, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The figures combine data for January and February to exclude distortions caused by the week-long Lunar New Year, which fell in February this year.

China managed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic before many of its peers last year, making it the only major economy to post full-year growth in 2020, with an expansion of 2.3 per cent.

Beijing has set a modest annual economic growth target at above 6% this year, well below analyst expectations. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has defended the target, saying China is focused on consolidating its economic recovery and that setting hugely different growth targets from year to year would “disturb” market expectations.