BEIJING, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Profits of China's major industrial firms increased 0.9 percent year on year in the first eight months of 2025, reversing the 1.7 percent decline in the January-July period, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Saturday.

This growth marks the end of a downward trend that has persisted since May of this year, said NBS statistician Yu Weining. She attributed the improvement to the implementation of macro policies, progress in building a unified national market, and a lower comparison base from a year ago.

Major industrial firms, or those with an annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.81 million U.S. dollars), saw their combined profits totaling nearly 4.7 trillion yuan during the eight months, according to the NBS.

In August, profits of major industrial firms recovered remarkably, rising 20.4 percent from the same period last year, compared with a 1.5 percent drop in July. Their business revenue expanded 1.9 percent year on year, one percentage point faster than the previous month, the data showed.

"Profits of enterprises of all sizes showed improvement, with equipment manufacturing providing strong support," Yu noted.

From January to August, major equipment manufacturing enterprises reported a 7.2 percent year-on-year increase in profits, which boosted overall industrial profit by 2.5 percentage points, NBS data revealed.

In the equipment manufacturing industry, profits increased in seven of its eight sub-sectors. Notably, the railway, shipbuilding and aerospace sector saw a rapid increase of 37.3 percent in profit, while that of electrical machinery grew 11.5 percent.

Driven by increased market demand, recovering prices and reduced costs, profits of the raw material manufacturing sector surged by 22.1 percent in the first eight months, a 10-percentage-point acceleration from the January-July period.

The steel industry reversed losses to achieve a total profit of 83.7 billion yuan in the eight-month period. Profits of the non-ferrous metals industry climbed by 12.7 percent year on year, 5.8 percentage points faster than in the first seven months.

China's producer price index, which measures costs for goods at the factory gate, broke a downward trend to hold steady in August from a month earlier after a 0.2 percent decrease in July.

Improved supply-demand relations reversed previous price declines in the energy and raw material sectors, according to the NBS. Specifically, prices of coal processing shifted from a 4.7 percent drop in July to a 9.7 percent increase in August.

Profits in consumer goods manufacturing also showed signs of recovery, which turned from a 2.2 percent decrease in January-July to a 1.4 percent rise in January-August. Liquor, beverages and tea producers together witnessed a jump of 19.9 percent in profits year on year, the NBS noted.

Noting the severe and complex external environment and insufficient domestic market demand, Yu said further efforts are needed to expand domestic demand, advance the building of a unified national market, and regulate corporate competition to create more favorable conditions for the sustained recovery of industrial profits. Enditem