The increase in the indicator was facilitated by the improvement in demand for steel and a low basis for comparison
China's steel industry increased its net profit by 157.3% in 2023 compared to 2022, to 56.5 billion RMB ($7.95 billion). This is reported by Kallanishh with reference to China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
According to the DNE, growth was driven by improved demand for steel and a low base compared to the previous year. More than half of the profits in 2023 were made between November and December.
The mining industry's annual profit last year rose 6.7 percent year-on-year to 55.45 billion yuan.
However, the annual profit growth rates in both industries may be exaggerated. If we calculate the indicator based on previously published data for 2022, its growth in the steel industry was only 54.5% y/y, and in the mining sector, profits fell by 6.8% y/y.
Overall, according to the NBS, the total gross profit of China's large industrial enterprises amounted to 7.69 trillion yuan ($1.07 trillion) in 2023, a drop of 2.3% compared to 2022.
As previously reported by us, China's steel enterprises produced 1.019 billion tons of steel in 2023, an increase of 0.6% compared to 2022. Thus, the downward trend in the country's steel industry has stopped after two consecutive years of decline in production. The period that contributed to the increase in steel production in 2023 was January-July, as the last 5 months of the year saw a monthly drop in volumes.
Furthermore, China increased its exports of steel products by 36.2% in 2023 compared to 2022, to 90.3 million tons. Export shipments reached the highest level since 2016.
