The 1,214 companies whose shares trade on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges reported average per-share profit of 0.127 yuan (1.53 U.S. cents) for the first three quarters, according to the Shanghai Securities News.

In analyzing third-quarter reports yesterday, the newspaper said average per-share earnings so far this year are 92.77 percent of the average for all of 2001.

The rate of return on net asset value stands at 4.97 percent, it said.

The 705 firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange posted earnings of 0.135 yuan per share. For Shenzhen's 509 companies, the figure was 0.11 yuan.

There are no comparable data for the first three quarters of 2001 because the quarterly-reporting requirement only went into effect this year.

"Judging from these figures, corporate profit will undoubtedly be stronger this year than last - possibly by as much as 15 percent," analyst Cheng Dinghua of Everbright Securities Co. Ltd. said.

China's public companies posted full-year earnings of 0.1369 yuan per share in 2001, a fall of nearly 22 percent from a year earlier.

The decline was attributed to a harsh crackdown by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on earnings fraud.

The average rate of return on net asset value was 5.56 percent.

Among macroeconomics factors, China's strong export record during the January-through-September period contributed most to revenue growth, analysts said.

China's mainland exports rose 19.4 percent during the period to US$232.6 billion, according to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Some flagship state-owned companies moved higher in the earnings chart, beating the average.

The 57 big-capitalization enterprises selected by the Shanghai Stock Exchange for a new index reported earning 0.145 yuan per share and having a 6.32 percent return on net assets.

The financial industry's pleasure in the new figures was dampened by the showing of companies issuing hard-currency Class-B shares.

The Chinese mainland's 111 B-share companies had per-share earnings of 0.1237 yuan, less than the overall average.

"They have come under much more stringent overseas auditing than usual in the wake of the accounting scandals on the U.S. stock market," said Everbright Securities' Cheng, who added that most are manufacturers facing strong competition.

(Shanghai Daily November 2, 2002)