Financial crisis sees Chinese companies' profits take 30% hit

Profits at China’s top state-owned companies fell 30% last year, hurt by the global financial crisis, but assets have increased.

The 141 banks, airlines, oil producers and other companies controlled by the central government reported net profit of 696.18 billion yuan (€69.3bn) last year, down 30.8% from the previous year, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.

The report cited the Cabinet’s State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) as saying the assets of the companies grew for the fifth consecutive year since 2004 and were worth 5.56 trillion yuan (€553.5bn) at the end of last year, up 8.6% from the previous year.

SASAC owns China’s biggest, most prominent companies, including China National Petroleum, China Mobile, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, China Life Insurance and Air China.

Beijing’s 4 trillion yuan (€398.2bn) stimulus helped to accelerate second-quarter economic growth to 7.9% over a year earlier, up from the previous quarter’s 6.1% expansion.