Listed firms to see 20% profit rise

BEIJING - The net profit of publicly-traded Chinese companies would rise around 20 percent on average in 2008, despite persisting inflationary risks and huge quake losses, said a fund management company on Saturday.

China Southern Fund Management Co. Ltd., which manages more than 240 billion yuan (US$ 34.3 billion), said the coal, oil and gas sectors would maintain strong growth while the power and petrochemical sectors would probably slow.

Lu Li, a company analyst, said the rise in net profit at these firms would hover around 20 percent in 2008 because the fundamentals of the Chinese economy were good.

The economy would be affected by a decelerated world economy, weakened by outside demand and natural disasters such as the snowstorm in January and February and the 8.0-magnitude earthquake that jolted southwestern China two weeks ago, said the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank, in a report on its website.

Official data showed the freak winter had led to direct economic loss of 151.6 billion yuan (about US$ 20.8 billion), while economists estimated the quake loss could reach hundreds of billions of yuan.

The government would continue to carry out a tight monetary policy and properly control bank credit this year, according to the report.

The net profit of listed Chinese companies soared 49.7 percent on average in 2007, boosted by the booming economy and high stock investment returns.

Revenue from the 1,574 companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges climbed 25 percent to 9.45 trillion yuan, accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

China's GDP expanded 11.9 percent last year, the fifth year of double- digit growth. Meanwhile, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index nearly doubled.

The country's economic growth slowed to 10.6 percent in the first quarter from 11.7 percent in the same period last year. This was because of slower export growth and the worst winter in more than five decades, mainly in southern China.