China's industrial profits down 3.7% y/y in April

BEIJING, May 27 (Reuters) - Profits earned by China's industrial companies contracted in April after a sharp rebound in the previous month, adding to concerns about the already slowing economy in the wake of a recent escalation in Sino-U.S. trade tensions.

Profits in April dropped 3.7% year-on-year to 515.4 billion yuan ($74.80 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Monday, compared with a 13.9% surge in March.

For the first four months of 2019, industrial profits dropped 3.4% on an annual basis to 1.81 trillion yuan.

Industrial firms' liabilities grew 5.5% from a year earlier to 63.87 trillion yuan by end-April, compared with a 6.5% rise at the end of the first quarter.

The data covers large companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan from their main operations.

($1 = 6.8907 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Sam Holmes)

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