In the January-March period this year, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling sector in China recorded a gross profit of RMB 7.51 billion ($1.0 billion), compared to a gross loss of RMB 21.36 billion recorded in the same period of last year, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on April 27.
The automotive sector recorded a gross profit of RMB 94.65 billion ($13.1 billion) in the given period, down 6.2 percent year on year.
At the same time, the ferrous metals mining and dressing sector, the metal manufacturing sector and the railway, shipping, aerospace and other transportation equipment manufacturing sector recorded gross profits of RMB 8.14 billion ($1.1 billion), RMB 27.96 billion ($3.9 billion) and RMB 25.16 billion ($3.5 billion) in the first three months, down 52.8 percent, up 7.2 percent and up 59.7 percent year on year, respectively.
In the given period, the aggregate gross profit of large and medium-sized industrial enterprises in China amounted to RMB 1.50936 trillion ($0.21 trillion), up 0.8 percent year on year.