In the first five months of 2020, the profits made by industrial enterprises above the designated size achieved 1,843.49 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 19.3 percent (calculated on comparable basis), and the pace of decline narrowed 8.1 percentage points over the first four months.

In May, industrial enterprises above the designated size posted a total profit of 582.34 billion yuan, rose by 6.0 percent year on year, and which was 4.3 percent of decline in April. In addition, the substantial increase in investment income that month also contributed to a significant improvement in profits in May.

In May, the operating income margin of industrial enterprises above designated size was 6.82%, a year-on-year increase of 0.29 percentage points, and an increase of 1.15 percentage points from April.

At the end of May, the percentage of loss-making industrial enterprises above designated size fell by 2.7 percentage points from the end of April. In May, the losses of loss-making enterprises narrowed by 11.0 percentage points from April. At the end of May, the growth rate of finished product inventory of industrial enterprises above designated size fell by 1.6 percentage points from the end of April; the turnover days of finished product inventory was 20.9 days, a decrease of 0.8 days from the end of April.

Although the profits of industrial enterprises in May achieved the first increase since this year, the market demand under the influence of the pandemic is still weak, and the continuity of profit recovery needs further observation. First, the growth rate of industrial sales has slowed down. In May, the growth rate of operating income of industrial enterprises above designated size fell by 3.7 percentage points from April; second, the number of industries with improved profits has decreased, among 41 major industries, the profit growth rate of 21 industries was faster than that in April.