We open with a look at China's economy. Fresh data shows that the profits of China's manufacturers rose at their fastest pace in six months in April as factories benefited from higher prices and strong demand.

The National Bureau of Statistics says profits rose 21.9 percent year-on-year in April to 576 billion yuan, or about 90-billion US dollars. That was the quickest growth since last October. It was also a significant improvement over March's 3.1 percent growth, which was the slowest in more than a year.  Analysts said the progress in April came mainly on the accelerated growth of industrial production and sales, the recovery of prices, and an increase in profits in the steel, chemical and automobile sectors. They said, too, that the effectiveness of supply-side structural reforms also contributed to the increase.

WANG HONGJU, RESEARCHER CHINESE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES "China's economic growth model is turning from quantity expansion to high-quality development due to the continuous impetus of the supply side structural reform." NBS data showed that at the end of April, the asset liability ratio of state-own enterprises was 59.5 percent. That was down 1.5 percentage points compared with the same period last year. Officials said that the deleveraging of state-owned enterprises was progressing well. The top regulator of China's SOEs discussed the situation this weekend at the 2018 World Manufacturing Convention.

XIAO YAQING, DIRECTOR STATE-OWNED ASSETS SUPERVISION & ADMINISTRATION COMMISSION OF THE STATE COUNCIL "It's necessary to keep focusing on the main industry, promoting technicians, funds and other resources to move on the main industry. Key areas of the core technology and independent innovation are always on top of the agenda."

Analysts said that the data also suggests that China's industrial sector is still seeing solid growth momentum despite curbs on pollution and rocky trade relations with the United States.