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Trade news S&P predicts profit falloff 2005-07-29 15:31:47 (has been browse 170 times) 　Many of China's listed companies may suffer lower profits this year as too much production capacity meets up with intense price competition, Standard & Poor's said in a report yesterday. 　　The industries facing the highest risks are autos, power supply, building materials, petrochemicals and electronics, the ratings agency said. 　　"A pickup in the consolidation process is expected ... most likely within the automakers, property developers, low-end steel manufacturers and mobile phone producers," Xiaoming Song, a Hong Kong-based S&P analyst said in the report. Companies in the petrochemical, telecommunications and steel industries were among the strongest revenue generators last year, riding economic growth spurred by infrastructure investments, according to the report. 　　Among the country's top 100 publicly traded enterprises ranked by 2004 revenue, 14 were oil producers and refiners, whose sales accounted for 41 percent of the total produced by all the companies on the list. 　　China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, Asia's biggest refiner, ranked first in sales last year, posting 591 billion yuan (US$73 billion) in revenue. 　　PetroChina Co Ltd, the nation's largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, made the highest profit, pulling in 102.9 billion yuan in net income. It stood second in sales, with 389 billion yuan. 　　Twenty-two firms on S&P's list came from the steel production sector, representing 13 percent of the combined 2004 revenue of the top 100 listed companies. 　　Telecom giants such as China Mobile (Hong Kong) Ltd and China Telecom Corp Ltd accounted for 17 percent of the total sales on the S&P list. 　　"The most profitable companies continue to be the large state-controlled firms, which have relatively protected market positions," the report said. 　　S&P said the average earnings of the top 100 Chinese corporations were up 41 percent to 742.1 million yuan last year, compared with a climb of 75 percent a year earlier. 　　China's central government last year began to implement austerity measures designed to rein in an overheating economy, curbing loans to sectors suffering from excess investment.