Chinese industrial firms saw their profits rise at a weaker rate during the month of April, with their gains coming under pressure on the back of rising commodity prices even as the demand for consumer goods dipped in the period. Data released by the NBS reveals that industrial profits grew by 57% YoY in April, a significant drop from March when they had risen by 92.3%.

For the first four months of 2021, total growth in China’s industrial profits stood at 106% YoY, touching 2.59 trillion yuan. The growth was driven by firms manufacturing chemical products and processing metals registering the maximum annual rise in profits, especially in comparison with the same period last year when the pandemic first flared up internationally.

NBS official Zhu Hong, however, cautioned about the uneven recovery in corporate performance, stating, “The profitability of some consumer goods industries has not yet recovered to pre-epidemic levels; coupled with the high prices of bulk commodities, this has increased the pressure on the production and operation of midstream and downstream industries.”

Meanwhile, the Chinese yuan has been mostly unaffected by the release of this slightly disappointing data and continues to trade below the key $6.40 level against the US dollar. At the time of writing, USD/CNH is trading at around $6.374.