China Railway Corp profits rose 69% in 2017

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China Railway Corporation (CRC), the state-owned high-speed railroad operator, reported a net profit of about 1.8 billion yuan (283 million US dollars) in 2017, a five-year high, up 69 percent year-on-year.

The company's revenue is on a 10-figure pace for the first time, standing at one trillion yuan (160 billion US dollars) last year, up 11.9 percent year-on-year.

In 2017, CRC registered a pre-tax profit of 12.468 billion yuan, turning around the losses of 2016 when the company had a pre-tax profit of -1.173 billion yuan.

CRC was able to report a net profit in 2016 mainly because of an annual government subsidy to support public transportation paid to the company.

The company also saw slower debt growth in 2017. An additional debt of 272 billion yuan was registered, while that was 620 billion yuan in 2016.

CRC saw 17.11 percent year-on-year growth in transportation revenue to 694.3 billion yuan in 2017, the second annual growth since the company was incorporated in 2013 after the railway operation business was split from the previous Ministry of Railway.

Revenue from passenger transportation totaled 319.7 billion yuan, rising 13.5 percent year-on-year, while freight transportation revenue increased by 23.6 percent from a year before to 266.2 billion yuan, according to the annual report.

According to the Q1 2018 report, CRC had a revenue of 179 billion yuan in the first three months, up 5.7 percent year-on-year. Passenger transportation income stood out as the biggest contributor. The company invested about 92 billion yuan in fixed-asset investment in Q1, about 12.6 percent of its annual FAI target.