Robots carry solar modules inside a photovoltaic plant in Jinhua, East China's Zhejiang Province on August 30, 2024. In the first seven months of this year, solar power's cumulative power generation capacity increased by 49.8 percent to 740 million kilowatts in the country, data showed. Photo: VCG

Backed by the sustained effects of the government's existing and incremental pro-growth policies, China's major industrial enterprises saw stable production growth in October. The drop in their monthly profits narrowed significantly by 17.1 percentage points from a month earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Wednesday.

Recovering business revenues supported corporate profits. Industrial enterprises above designated size saw a 10 percent year-on-year decline in October, a sharp improvement as the decline narrowed by 17.1 percentage points from September, NBS data revealed.

Most industries saw profits improve in the month, driven by growth in equipment manufacturing and high-tech industries. Meanwhile, the profit decline in raw materials and consumer goods manufacturing narrowed significantly, NBS statistician Yu Weining explained in a statement.

Over 60 percent of industries saw improved profits compared with the previous month, with manufacturing showing the most noticeable improvement, Yu said.

In October, the profit decline in manufacturing narrowed by 22.3 percentage points compared with September, contributing to a 17.8 percentage point reduction in overall profit decline.

In the equipment manufacturing sector, profits grew by 4.5 percent year-on-year, rebounding to a positive growth in October after earlier declines, which has provided strong support for the overall improvement in profits across large industrial enterprises, Yu noted.

Profits in high-tech manufacturing sector posted double-digit growth in the month, rising 12.9 percent year-on-year.

The improvement in industrial profits was primarily driven by better performance in manufacturing, highlighting the success of macroeconomic policies in spurring consumption and investment recovery. Profits improved in consumer goods and equipment manufacturing, while high-tech manufacturing sector continued to deliver strong profitability, Zhou Maohua, an economist at China Everbright Bank, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Looking ahead, the decline in industrial profits is expected to narrow further. This is largely due to the ample room for pro-growth measures to continue delivering results, along with stronger domestic consumption and investment activities. These factors are driving up demand and prices in industrial manufacturing, and improving corporate profitability, Zhou noted.

In a meeting held on September 26, the Political Bureau of Communist Party of China Central Committee stressed that efforts should be intensified to attract and secure investment, speed up reform measures such as allowing foreign investment access to the manufacturing sector, and further optimize a world-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based and internationalized.

Currently, all foreign investment restrictions in the manufacturing sector have been lifted.

According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, high-tech manufacturing has emerged as a new "magnet" for foreign investment. From January to October, the country's actual foreign capital utilization reached 693 billion yuan ($96 billion). Of this, high-tech manufacturing attracted 80 billion yuan, accounting for 11.6 percent of the total - a 0.7 percentage point increase from the same period last year.

From January to October, profits at major industrial firms nationwide totaled 5.868 trillion yuan, down 4.3 percent year-on-year, NBS data showed.

Overall, while profits at large industrial enterprises are still in decline, the situation has been improved due to faster policy implementation and incremental measures, which have helped boost the performance of industrial companies, Yu said.