China's industrial profits dropped sharply in April

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data released on Friday showed that China's industrial profits for the first four months were CNY1.84 trillion, up 6.5% y/y but 0.9 percentage point lower than Q1.

For April alone, China's industrial profits were CNY502 billion, up 4.2% y/y, but 6.9 percentage points lower than that of March. China's state firms' profits dropped 8.4 percent in the January to April period.

The coal mining industry saw profits down as much as 92.2% during the first four months. Product inventories at industrial firms fell 1.2 percent year on year at end April, the first drop in recent years, the statistics bureau noted.

Chinese equities unable to find a clear direction as a sharp fall in China April industrial profits data weighed on the markets. China's CSI300 index closed down 0.1 pct at 3,062.50 points, down 0.5 pct for the week. Shanghai composite index was down 0.2 pct for the week.