Employees work on the production line of automotive display chips at a workshop on May 22, 2026 in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province of China.Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty ImagesBEIJING — China’s industrial profits surged by 24.7% in April from a year earlier, according to official data released Wednesday, despite broader signs of slowing economic momentum.The increase marked the fastest growth since November 2023, according to financial data provider Wind Information, and accelerated from a 15.8% rise in March.For the first four months of the year, industrial profits rose 18.2%, up from 15.5% growth in the first quarter. Computing and electronics equipment manufacturing, the largest sector by profit amount, saw earnings more than double from a year ago, although the pace slowed slightly in April from March on a year-to-date basis.Among the ten largest sectors by profit, the oil and gas extraction industry posted an 8.1% rise in profits in the first four months of the year, reversing a 1.4% decline in the first quarter. Higher crude prices helped lift profits in the petroleum processing industry to 40.42 billion yuan ($5.96 billion) in the January-April period, nearly double the 22.94 billion yuan recorded as of March.Profits for automobile manufacturers fell 16.8% in the same period from a year earlier, improving from a 17.7% decline in the first quarter.Beijing’s efforts to address excessive competition in the automobile and other sectors are starting to bear fruit, EU Chamber of Commerce of China President Jens Eskelund told reporters on Tuesday, citing a survey of members earlier in the year. But he cautioned it would take another year or two to confirm the trend.A fivefold increase in profits in the mining and related sectors also boosted overall industrial profit growth, while iron smelting and rolling swung to a profit for the year as of April, compared with a loss in the first quarter.However, profit declines in furniture manufacturing steepened to 54.4 …
