BEIJING (Realist English). China’s industrial sector returned to growth in August, marking the first monthly profit increase since April, as President Xi Jinping intensified calls for businesses to rein in aggressive price competition.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), profits at companies with annual revenues above Rmb20mn ($2.8mn) rose 20.4% year on year in August, reversing a 1.5% decline in July. For January–August, cumulative profits were up 0.9%, compared with a 1.7% fall in the first seven months of 2025.
“The profits of industrial enterprises have improved significantly,” said Yu Weining, chief statistician of the NBS industrial department. He noted, however, that the economic environment remains “severe and complex,” with domestic demand still insufficient.
Xi has repeatedly warned against “disorderly price competition,” particularly in the electric vehicle industry, where manufacturers have engaged in steep discounting to win market share. In a recent article for the Communist Party’s journal Qiushi, Xi stressed that stabilizing prices was key to creating a “unified national market.”
The rebound was supported by falling input costs and government measures to promote market efficiency, the NBS said. Yet broader challenges persist. Fitch Ratings estimates that effective U.S. tariffs on Chinese exports reached 34% in August, with an additional 40% levy on goods “transshipped” through third countries looming.
China also slipped back into consumer price deflation in August, while producer prices have contracted for nearly three years, underscoring the difficulty of sustaining industrial recovery.