China's central SOEs record a 7.8% drop in revenue in H1 2020
Updated 22:53, 16-Jul-2020
CGTN
02:03

Revenues of China's centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) dropped by 7.8 percent year on year in the first half of 2020 to 13.4 trillion yuan (1.9 trillion U.S. dollars), the country's state asset regulator said Thursday.

Thursday's data reflected the economic disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic and indicated that prevention and control measures have led to accelerated recovery.

Central SOEs achieved a net profit of 166.48 billion yuan in June, an increase of 64.63 billion yuan from May, a year-on-year increase of 5 percent, record the first positive monthly net profit this year.

In the first half of the year, central SOEs accumulated a net profit of 438.55 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 37.7 percent, according to Peng Huagang, spokesperson for the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

Since the resumption of work in March, fixed asset investment from central SOEs has reached 1 trillion yuan in the first half of this year, a year-on-year jump of 7.2 percent.

The fixed-asset investment includes capital spent on infrastructure, property, machinery and other physical assets.

To assist small and medium-sized enterprises fighting the epidemic, central SOEs implemented a series of policies in reducing electricity prices and rents. The total operating cost of enterprises was reduced by more than 120 billion yuan in the first half of the year, said Peng. 

He projected that the reduction will continue in the second half of 2020 and said plans are being drawn up to make up for the losses and attain positive growth for central state-owned enterprises for the whole year.

Looking into the second half of the year, Peng said the central SOEs would seize new infrastructure investment opportunities, such as 5G, and continue to strengthen the supervision of projects in high-risk areas, including finance.

(Wu Guoxiu and Bao Hongwei contributed to the story.)