China National Building Materials (CNBM) has issued a profit warning for 2023, reports MarketScreener. According to the company, unaudited profit attributable to the equity holders of CNBM is forecast to decline by 65 per cent in 2023, compared to the previous year.
The contraction is being attributed to a fall in the sales price of cement, commercial concrete and glass fibre, and lower sales volumes of cement and commercial concrete. The company has also noted a decline in performance attributed by associates and a reduction in gains on disposal of assets, although this has reportedly been partly offset by a lower cost of sales in CNBM’s cement and commercial concrete businesses.
Recent reports by Reuters have revealed a 2.3 per cent YoY decline in profits at China’s industrial firms in 2023, marking the second consecutive annual drop. This has been blamed on poor demand at home and abroad, adding further pressure to China’s deep property slump and deflationary risks. However, industrial profits are expected to advance by 5-6 per cent in 2024 as demand picks up in China, Europe, the USA and Japan, with industrial profits in December 2023 seeing a 16.8 per cent improvement on the same period in 2022.
