China's listed firms see higher earnings amid economic restructuring

BEIJING - Listed companies in China reported rapid profit growth in 2017 as the country's supply-side structural reform began to bear results.

So far, over half of listed companies on the country's two major exchanges have reported their 2017 performance, and nearly 70 percent of them saw profit gains, according to the Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News.

Most companies in traditional sectors such as coal and steel posted strong growth on the back of the country's economic restructuring and business environment improvement.

Nineteen out of 20 companies that have released 2017 reports in the coal sector saw profit growth as China continues to slash excess coal capacity and product price increases.

Shanxi Lu'an Environmental Energy Development said in its report that the company's net profit is expected to surge 210 to 245 percent year-on-year in 2017.

Xinjiang Bayi Iron and Steel forecast that the company's net profit jumped over 30 times in 2017 on the back of continued overcapacity cut efforts.

Meanwhile, sectors including cement, chemicals and papermaking all witnessed improved performance in 2017 thanks to the supply-side reform to upgrade the industries.

China's wide-ranging structural reform, designed to improve the supply side of the economy, has produced the desired outcomes in 2017 and are expected to gear up in 2018.

In the battle against overcapacity, a major task for the reform, China has accomplished its plans to slash steel production capacity by around 50 million tons and coal by at least 150 million tons last year.

Progress has also been reported on the other four fronts, including deleveraging, destocking, lowering costs, and enhancing weak links.

The annual Central Economic Work Conference last month pledged that China will press ahead with supply-side structural reform in 2018 with more efforts to improve economic quality.