BEIJING (Reuters) – Profit at China’s industrial firms fell 21.4% in the first quarter from a year earlier, official data showed on Thursday, as the factory sector struggled to shake off the fallout from crippling pandemic.
The decline compared with a 22.9% slump in industrial profit in the first two months, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
The data covered firms with annual revenues of at least 20 million yuan ($2.89 million) from their main operations.
($1 = 6.9163 Chinese yuan)
(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li and Ryan Woo; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
