China's economic slowdown is hitting profits at more foreign companies, a survey by an American business lobby shows.
And the number of foreign companies rating their business profitable dropped to a five-year low in 2015, while 45 percent of about 500 respondents in the American Chamber of Commerce's China annual survey reported that revenues in 2015 were down or remained flat from a year earlier.
Data from China's statistics bureau on Tuesday showed growth for 2015 was 6.9 percent, its weakest pace in a quarter of a century, capping a tumultuous year that witnessed a huge outflow of capital, a slide in the currency and a summer stocks crash.
"Although many respondents remain optimistic about China's domestic market growth potential, almost half of survey respondents expect that China's overall GDP growth in 2016 will be lower than 6.25 per cent," the American Chamber said in its business climate survey.
The People's Bank of China in December forecast that the country's annual economic growth will slow to 6.8 percent in 2016.
The American Chamber survey results, published on Wednesday, underscore the growing unease and challenges faced by some overseas companies in the world's second-biggest economy.
Forty-eight percent of respondents expected GDP growth this year to reach 6.25 percent or less, while 35 percent said the economy would increase between 6.25 and 6.75 percent.
Overall, 64 percent of respondents said their companies were financially profitable in the last year, compared with 73 percent in 2014.
Reuters
