Well-known Chinese news site Sina recently reported, based on statistics that China’s Ministry of Finance released, that, from January to September, the profits of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) suffered a substantial decline of 8.2 percent. Among these companies, those that the central government owned saw a profit decline of 10.2 percent; those the local governments owned ones saw a decline of 2.7 percent. Among the industries that the statistics covered, petrochemical, oil, building materials, iron and steel, coal, and nonferrous metals industries were the ones seeing significant declines in profits. At the same time, China’s Producer Price Index (PPI) has been on the negative side for 43 consecutive months. The same statistics from the Ministry of Finance also showed that, for the same period of January to September, the SOEs had a total income decline of 6.1 percent.
Source: Sina, October 21, 2015
http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/forex/20151021/194623537407.shtml