Profits at industrial firms in China fell in the first seven months of the year as the economy continued to struggle with Covid disruptions and the ongoing downturn in the real estate sector, Bloomberg reports.
Earnings in the January-July period fell by 1.1% compared to a year earlier, the National Statistics Service announced on Saturday. This was compared to an increase of 0.8% in June.
China’s economic slowdown worsened in July, with retail sales, industrial production and investment missing economists’ estimates. Policymakers moved to boost growth after the weak data, with measures that included cuts in both one-year and seven-day lending rates and 1 trillion yuan ($146 billion) in further financing focused mainly on spending for infrastructure.
Economists have taken a relatively negative view of the measures as they likely won’t go far enough to address the damage from repeated Covid lockdowns and the slumping property market. They now expect China’s economy to grow at a rate of less than 4 percent this year, according to the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey, well below the government’s target of “around 5.5 percent.”
Source: Capital
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