Soaring commodity prices are putting pressure on businesses in China, even as the country’s wider industrial sector rebounds from the early effects of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the official data agency.

The National Bureau of Statistics released figures on Thursday that showed a 57 per cent rise in profits at large industrial companies in April compared with a year earlier, with the sector benefiting from the comparison with a low base in 2020 owing to the pandemic. Profits grew 92 per cent in March.

The data highlighted an “uneven” improvement in corporate performance in China, the NBS said, despite the economy’s broad recovery over the past year. Higher prices for raw materials have boosted the profits of miners and other producers but they also stand to increase costs for downstream businesses further along the supply chain, the NBS added.