In the January-March period this year, the ferrous metal smelting and rolling sector recorded a gross loss of RMB 21.36 billion ($3.0 billion), increasing compared to the gross loss of RMB 4.84 billion recorded in the same period of last year, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on April 28.
The automotive sector recorded a gross profit of RMB 81.94 billion ($11.5 billion) in the first three months this year, down 24.2 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 9.46 billion ($1.3 billion), RMB 28.83 billion ($4.1 billion) and RMB 11.69 billion ($1.6 billion) in the given period, down 46.9 percent, down 19.8 percent and up 39.0 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 1.50553 trillion ($0.2 trillion), up 4.3 percent year on year.