China's Industrial Profits Return to Growth

Profits of China's major industrial firms rose 4.8% year on year in the first two months of 2016, reversing the downward trend of last year, official data showed Sunday. 
Profits at industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan (about 3.1 million US.dollars) totaled 780.7 billion yuan in the Jan.-Feb. period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said. 
The profits registered a 4.7% year-on-year fall in December and a 2.3% annual decrease in 2015, according to China's (Xinhua) News Agency. 
He Ping, an official with the NBS Department of Industry, attributed the latest profit growth to increased sales and a milder decline in factory product prices. 
In the first two months, revenues from the firms' primary business climbed 1% year on year, improving from a 0.6% drop in December 2015 and a 0.8% increase for last year. 
In the Jan.-Feb. period, China's producer price index, which measures prices of goods at factory gate, slipped 5.1% year on year, narrowing from a drop of 5.9% in December and 5.2% for 2015. 
Despite the recovery, part of the industrial profit growth was a result of the lower base in the same period of last year, He noted. 
Industrial profits dipped 4.2% year on year in the Jan.-Feb. period of 2015, NBS data showed. 
Compared with the same period of 2014, the Jan.-Feb. industrial profits of this year only inched up 0.4%, said He.