China’s Central SOEs See Sharp Slowdown in Profit Growth

What’s New: Net profits of China’s central government-administered nonfinancial state-owned enterprises (SOEs) rose 2.1% to 1.4 trillion yuan ($215.5 billion) last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic, slower than the 10.8% growth in 2019, data (link in Chinese) from the top SOE watchdog showed Tuesday.

Net profits of the SOEs dropped 61.2% year-on-year in the first four months last year but significantly rebounded later, following the government’s efforts to bring the domestic outbreak under control, Peng Huagang, State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration spokesperson, said Tuesday at a news conference.

What’s the interesting detail: Nearly 80% of the SOEs achieved growth in net profits last year, Peng said. That means more than 20% of the SOEs either saw their net profits drop or remain unchanged or reported net losses in the period.

Related: China’s Centrally Owned SOE Profits Fall Nearly 60% in First Quarter

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Contact reporter Tang Ziyi (ziyitang@caixin.com) and editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)