China's iron and steel enterprises suffered sharp drop of profits and expansion of losses in the first three quarters of this year, said Luo Bingsheng, vice-president of the China Iron and Steel Association.

 

Luo said 23 large and midsize iron and steel companies reported losses in September, accounting for 32.4 percent of the total, and they suffered a total losses amounting for 1.15 billion yuan in the first three quarters, 18.06 times of the same period a year ago.

 

Such situation has continued into October, said the vice president.

 

The profit rate on sales of iron land steel products of large and midsize iron and steel enterprises was 7.61 percent in the first half, which was dropped to 1.4 percent in September, down 6.21 percentage points.

 

The 71 large and midsize iron and steel enterprises under the survey of the association realized sales revenue of 2,098.203 billion yuan in the first three quarters, rising 39 percent year on year, and profits of 132.625 billion yuan, up 13.13 percent.

 

For comparison, the enterprises raked in 98.246 billion yuan of profits in the first half, averaging 16.37 billion yuan a month, demonstrating a high margin of profits. But the profits were 30.377 billion yuan in the third quarter, averaging 10.126 billion yuan amonth, presenting a 38.16 percent drop in profitability. The profits declined to 3.22 billion yuan in September, which decreased 80.33 percent from the monthly average in the first half.

 

China's crude steel output reached 390.95 million tons in the first quarters, up 6.22 percent year on year, which was 11.39 percentage points lower than the growth in the same period last year.

 

The output of crude steel kept on dropping month on month in the third quarter to 44.88 million tons in July, 42.56 million tons in August and 39.61 million tons in September, down 4.38 percent, 5.17 percent and 6.94 percent month on month respectively.

 

The output in June topped 46.94 million tons.

 

Output of large and midsize iron and steel enterprises cut output by 4.23 million tons in the third quarter, accounting for 57.7 percent of the total reduced, and local small and midsize enterprises reduced output by 3.1 billion tons, 42.3 percent of the total.

 

Output of pig iron was 366.73 million tons in the first nine months, up 5.05 percent year on year, and down 10.63 percentage points from the same period last year.

 

 

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