BEIJING (Reuters) – Profits of Chinese industrial companies rose at a faster pace in October, the statistics bureau said on Saturday, providing a buffer to a faltering economy battered by soaring commodity prices.

Profits in October rose 24.6% from a year earlier to 818.7 billion yuan ($ 128.1 billion), according to official data, accelerating from a gain of 16 , 3% recorded in September.

For the January-October period, industrial company profits rose 42.2 percent year-on-year to 7.2 trillion yuan, less than a 44.7 percent increase in the first nine months of 2021.

The industrial profit data covers large companies with annual revenues of over 20 million yuan from their main operations.

The government’s efforts to secure supplies and stabilize prices have helped companies alleviate the difficulties, which in turn helped improve production conditions and profits, said Zhu Hong, senior statistician at the National Bureau of statistics.

However, he said the profit differentiation between upstream and downstream industries had not significantly improved, with downstream industries still facing pressures on their profitability.

Prices in China have skyrocketed amid an electricity shortage, and Beijing has attempted to cool a market burning coal, the country’s main fuel for power generation.

However, an official with the Chinese state planner said last Sunday that “the prices of energy, including the prices of coal have come down considerably” and have pushed down the prices of steel, aluminum, pulp, PVC and coal chemicals.

The world’s second-largest economy experienced an impressive rebound from last year’s pandemic crisis, but has since lost momentum as it grapples with a manufacturing slowdown, housing market debt problems and COVID-19 outbreaks.

China’s industrial production grew faster than expected in October, but remained the second weakest impression this year.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) held a meeting with representatives of industrial associations and companies, including Aluminum Corp of China and China Minmetals Corp, on Friday to discuss the issues. industrial raw materials, he said on Saturday in a statement https: / /mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5OTUwMTc2OA%3D%3D&chksm=bcceef758bb96663e8cba531059c8e1213df7038f152d88160993661a7aed8e0bf8d8adc1588&idx==1507e1213df7038f152d88160993661a7aed8e0bf8d8adc1588&idx=19570e&mid=2650n

Upstream and downstream development should be better coordinated to ensure supply chain stability, and industry risk response capacities should be strengthened to prevent ‘gray rhino’ incidents and of “black swan”, he quoted, quoting the vice-minister of MIIT, Wang Jiangping. saying.

The industrial profit data covers large companies with annual revenues of over 20 million yuan from their main operations.

($ 1 = 6.3924 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Albee Zhang and Brenda Goh; editing by Sam Holmes and William Mallard)

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