China factory firms return to profit on investment, base effects

BEIJING: Chinese companies returned to profit in July, driven by a comparison with weak results a year ago, a jump in electrical machinery equipment sales and an improvement in the returns of manufacturers of cars, chemicals and processed oil.

Industrial profits rose 2.6% in July from a year earlier, after dropping in June. For the first seven months of the year, profits were down 1.7%. Infrastructure investment in railways pushed up profits of electrical machine production, according to Iris Pang, an economist at ING bank NV.