China’s industrial profits plunge by 17.8% in August from a year ago

China’s industrial profits plunged by 17.8% in August from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.

That followed a 4.1% year-on-year increase in July, the fastest pace in five months.

Industrial profits covers factories, mines and utilities in China.

For the first eight months, profits at large industrial firms grew at 0.5% to 4.65 trillion yuan ($663.47 billion), compared with 3.6% in the first seven months.

The Chinese government has stepped up efforts this week to support economic growth amid concerns that Beijing could miss its full-year GDP target of around 5%. Sluggish domestic demand, a prolonged housing downturn and rising unemployment have weighed on the world’s second largest economy.

On Thursday, China’s top leaders called for halting the property slump and strengthening fiscal and monetary policy support, according to readout of a high-level meeting chaired by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The People’s Bank of China on Friday officially cut the amount of cash banks need to have on hand, known as the reserve requirement ratio or RRR, by 50 basis points. The central bank also lowered the 7-day reverse repurchase rate by 20 basis points to 1.5%, from 1.7% previously.

The rate cuts followed the announcement from the central bank’s governor Pan Gongsheng at a press conference on Tuesday.

In August, China’s industrial activity, retail sales and urban investment all grew slower than expected, with retail sales rising by barely more than 2% and industrial production by 4.5% from a year ago.

Among fixed asset investment, real estate fell by 10.2% for the year through August, the same pace of decline as of July. The urban unemployment rate was 5.3% in August, an uptick from 5.2% in the previous month.

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