Profits of Chinese industrial enterprises rose sharply in December

At the end of 2020, Chinese industrial companies saw a significant increase in profits. This was shown by official data from the Chinese statistical office. According to statisticians, profits in Chinese industry in December 2020 rose for the eighth month in a row, by 20.1 percent year on year to 707.11 billion yuan (90 billion euros). At the same time, their growth rate accelerated from 15.5 percent in November. For the whole of 2020, the profits of industrial companies in the world's second largest economy increased by 4.1 percent to 6.45 trillion CNY, as opposed to a decline of 3.3 percent in 2019. The engine of profit growth in the industry was the manufacturing industry thanks to the recovery from the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The measures taken by the government after the outbreak of the pandemic early last year, together with global demand, helped increase activity in companies after its sharp fall in the first quarter of 2020.