The latest official data from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) shows that in 2024, profits of industrial enterprises above a certain scale in China decreased by 3.3% compared to the previous year, marking the third consecutive year of decline.
According to the CCP’s National Bureau of Statistics, on January 27, 2024, industrial enterprises above a certain scale in China achieved a total profit of 7.43105 trillion yuan, a 3.3% decrease from the previous year.
Among them, state-owned holding enterprises achieved a total profit of 2.13973 trillion yuan, a 4.6% decrease from the previous year; joint-stock enterprises achieved a total profit of 5.61664 trillion yuan, a 3.6% decrease; foreign, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwanese investment enterprises achieved a total profit of 1.76379 trillion yuan, a 1.7% decrease; private enterprises achieved a total profit of 2.32458 trillion yuan, a 0.5% increase.
However, CCP official data often conceals unfavorable situations, and the actual data may be even worse.
This marks the third consecutive year of decline in this data. In 2023, industrial enterprise profits in China decreased by 2.3% year-on-year, and in 2022, the decrease was 4%. In contrast, in 2021, industrial enterprise profits nationwide increased by 34.3% year-on-year, and in 2020, the increase was 4.1%. This indicates that after the pandemic, the Chinese economy has continued to stagnate, with a difficult recovery.
According to the definition of the CCP’s National Bureau of Statistics, industrial enterprises above a certain scale refer to industrial legal entities with annual main business income of over 20 million yuan.
Additionally, on January 27, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector in January was 49.1, not only below market expectations but also ended three consecutive months of expansion, falling into contraction territory for the first time in a while and registering the weakest performance since August of the previous year.
In December 2024, the Caixin China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index recorded 50.5, a decrease of 1.0 percentage point from November, lower than the Reuters expectation of 51.7. At that time, Caixin reported that sampled companies reflected a bleak external economic environment, pessimistic trade prospects, and decreased demand for Chinese manufacturing products in overseas markets.