REPEAT: MNI 5 THINGS: China Industrial Sales Cool on Slowdown

Repeats Story Initially Transmitted at 01:37 GMT Oct 28/21:37 EST Oct 27

     BEIJING (MNI) - Combined profits made by China's industrial companies in

September slowed for a fifth month, according to data released by the National

Bureau of Statistics on Saturday. Here are the five things MNI highlights: 

     - September industrial profits gained 4.1% y/y to CNY545.5 billion, down

from 9.2% growth in August. Accumulative profits for Jan-Sept rose 14.7% y/y to

CNY4.97 trillion.

     - The drop in Sept is mainly due to the slowdown in production and sales

and product price gains, as well as last year providing a high base of

comparison, the NBS said.

     - In Q1-Q3, 72.4% profit gains came from five industries, including steel

(+71.1%), construction materials (+44.9%), oil processing (+30.8%) and chemical

sector (+24.5%), as well as crude oil extraction, which registered fourfold

profit growth, the NBS said.

     - By end-Sept, the debt-to-asset ratio of large-scale industrial

enterprises tracked by the NBS averaged 56.7%, down 0.4 percentage point y/y.

Such ratio of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was 59%, down 1.6 percentage points

y/y, showing progress of the deleveraging campaign, according to the NBS.

     - Profits of industrial SOEs, which shared larger benefits from the

supply-side reform, grew by 23.3% y/y to CNY1.53 trillion in Jan-Sept, while

profits of private companies rose 9.3% to CNY1.26 trillion.

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 10 8532 5998; email: william.bi@mni-news.com

--MNI Beijing Bureau; +86 (10) 8532-5998; email: wanxia.lin@marketnews.com