Industrial profit of Chinese firms for the January-November period continued to fall further, hurt by stringent Covid-19 restrictions that disrupted factory activities and supply chains.
Profits of China’s industrial firms fell 3.6% for the first 11 months in 2022 to 7.7 trillion yuan, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday. The data in November topped January-October data for a drop of 3.0%.
China is struggling to put better performance on the industrial front as the authorities’ Covid control measures limited their output, fueling a slowdown in exports of the world’s second-largest economy.
In November, industrial output increased by 2.2% from a year earlier, missing expectations for a 3.6% by Reuters poll. The figure showed a significant slowdown from a 5.0% growth seen in October.
Nevertheless, China stated late Monday that starting from January 8, 2023, China will: no longer impose quarantine measures on COVID-19 infections and will take no quarantinable infectious disease control measures against entry persons and goods, along with other lifted measures. Moreover, local authorities will be stripped of the power to shut down entire communities from early next month.
This could mark China’s first step for a full reopening and continuing to live with the virus.
