China’s industrial profits rose 0.9 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2025, reversing a 1.7 percent decline in the January-July period, multiple media outlets reported, citing data released Saturday by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The rebound was led by a sharp improvement in August, when profits jumped 20.4 percent compared to a year earlier, following a 1.5 percent drop in July. Business revenue grew 1.9 percent in the same month – one percentage point more than in July – reflecting initial gains from Beijing’s efforts to curb aggressive price competition across key industries.
Authorities have recently tightened oversight in sectors such as electric vehicles and solar manufacturing, where prolonged price wars have squeezed profit margins.
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The policy shift has helped ease producer price deflation, though a broad recovery in demand remains uncertain amid a continuing property downturn and weak labour market. Both industrial output and retail sales recorded their weakest gains since last year, underscoring lingering pressure on growth, analysts said.
Private-sector firms posted a 3.3 percent profit increase over the first eight months of 2025, while foreign-funded enterprises’ profits rose 0.9 percent. State-owned companies, meanwhile, saw profits decline 1.7 percent during the same period.
According to Reuters, a potential easing cycle by the US Federal Reserve could give the People’s Bank of China more room to adjust monetary policy without triggering capital outflows or further weakening the yuan.
