China's coal industry sees better profitability

BEIJING -- China's coal supply and demand was basically balanced last year, with prices fluctuating within a reasonable range, an industry report showed.

Profits of China's major coal producers rose 5.2 percent year-on-year to 288.82 billion yuan (about $43 billion). Revenues increased 5.5 percent to 2.27 trillion yuan, according to a report issued by the China National Coal Association.

The number of coal mines was reduced sharply, down to 5,800 at the end of 2018, and the average production capacity was raised to about 920,000 tons per year.

The coal industry still faces deep-seated problems such as relative overcapacity and imbalanced development, the report said.

China's coal consumption is expected to remain stable in 2019, and is likely to see a looser balance between supply and demand, the association forecast in the report.

China produced 3.55 billion tons of raw coal last year, up 5.2 percent year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.