• Revenue up by 15.8% to 75.4 billion yuan in 2025: report.
• Company’s profits up by 6.5% to 3.4 billion yuan in 2025.
• Chengdu sales in first-quarter rose almost 80% on year.
  

China’s AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, the maker of J-10C aircraft used by Pakistan to down India’s French-made planes in May last year, has reported a significant surge in profits, according a report by Bloomberg.

Revenue increased by 15.8% to 75.4 billion yuan ($11 billion) in 2025, with profit up 6.5% to 3.4 billion yuan in 2025, the publication cited the jetmaker as saying in a statement.

The numbers are the highest-ever for the company, Bloomberg reported, adding that Chengdu’s first-quarter sales rose almost 80% on year.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) inducted J-10C in March 2022, in a major boost to the country’s military capabilities to defend airspace.

At the time, the government said that the fighter jet could carry more advanced, fourth-generation air-to-air missiles, including the short-range PL-10 and the beyond-visual-range PL-15.

The fighter jet saw its first combat use in May 2025 when India launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistan on May 6, following an attack on tourists in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan, during the 87-hour conflict, downed seven Indian fighter jets, including French-made Rafale, and dozens of drones.

The four-day war saw Pakistan successfully employing the Chinese-made HQ-9 air-defence system, PL-15 air-to-air missiles, and J-10C fighter aircraft, credited with downing multiple Indian aircraft.

The PAF also used its JF-17 Thunder jets to destroy India’s S-400 air defence system in Adampur by using hypersonic missiles.

The war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the US.

Months after the conflict, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General (DG) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry praised the performance of Chinese-made weapons, saying they performed “exceptionally well,” The News reported, citing Bloomberg.

“Of course, lately, recent Chinese platforms, they’ve demonstrated exceptionally well,” Lt Gen Chaudhry said in an interview in October last year.

In November last year, a report presented to the United States Congress acknowledged Pakistan’s “military success over India” in the war.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission report — reviewing US-China security and foreign affairs — stated that Pakistan employed advanced Chinese weaponry to enhance its military edge over India.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said Wednesday a proposed $9 billion megaport and city project on the strategic Great Nicobar Island is “destruction dressed in development’s language”.

The island, nearly 3,000 kilometres (1,860 miles) from New Delhi, sits at the entrance to one of the world’s busiest waterways — the Strait of Malacca, through which up to 30% of global maritime trade passes.

The plan to develop the 910 square kilometre (351 square miles) island with a container port, airport and city see swathes of pristine rainforest cut down, including land inhabited for millennia by communities with minimal outside contact.

“What is being done in Great Nicobar is one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against this country’s natural and tribal heritage in our lifetime,” Gandhi said in a video message posted on social media, showing him walking through the island’s forests.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the Great Nicobar Island Project “is of strategic, defence and national importance”, and India´s environmental court gave the green light in February.

But Gandhi said he would try to stop it.

“What I have seen is not a project,” he added. “It is millions of trees marked for the axe. It is 160 square kilometres of rainforest condemned to die. It is communities that have been ignored while their homes have been snatched away.”

Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav last year insisted that the project “poses no threat to the island’s tribal groups” and “does not jeopardise the eco-sensitivity of the region”.

Around 9,000 people live on the island, including around 1,200 from Indigenous groups, including the Nicobarese and the Shompen, hunter-gatherers who have shunned contact with outsiders, according to rights group Survival International.

“As well as devastating the local environment and the Nicobarese Indigenous communities, the Great Nicobar project would destroy the Shompen, a largely uncontacted people who live in the rainforest,” Survival’s Sophie Grig said Wednesday.

She called the megaport an “ill-conceived project, which must be cancelled before an entire people are wiped out”.

Asian stocks fluctuated on Wednesday while oil prices swung as talks to end the Iran war appeared to be at a standstill and the crucial Strait of Hormuz no nearer being reopened.

While the White House has said Donald Trump and his team were considering Tehran’s latest proposal to restore traffic through the waterway, CNN and the Wall Street Journal said the president was sceptical.

The Islamic republic this week submitted a plan that would reportedly see it ease the chokehold and Washington lift its retaliatory blockade on the country’s ports as talks continued, including over its nuclear programme.

While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Iran’s proposal was “better than what we thought they were going to submit”, he insisted any eventual deal had to be “one that definitively prevents them from sprinting towards a nuclear weapon”.

Iranian defence ministry spokesman Reza Talaei-Nik said Washington “must abandon its illegal and irrational demands”, adding the United States was “no longer in a position to dictate its policy to independent nations”.

Qatar warned of the possibility of a “frozen conflict” if a definitive resolution is not found.

Concerns about the stalled peace push have pushed crude prices higher for more than a week, with Trump’s decision to cancel his envoys’ trip for peace talks in Pakistan last weekend adding to the downbeat mood.

Brent is above the level it hit before the two sides announced a ceasefire at the start of April, sitting around $112, while West Texas Intermediate broke $100 Tuesday for the first time in two weeks.

Both contracts were slightly higher on Wednesday.

“Iran wants the blockade lifted and access to its flows restored,” wrote Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.

“Washington holds that lever and is in no hurry to give it away without extracting value.

“Meanwhile, the longer this drags on, the more second-order effects start to bite. Storage pressure builds, production risks emerge, and the system begins to strain in ways that futures prices cannot ignore.”

There was little major reaction to news that key producer United Arab Emirates had decided to withdraw from the OPEC and OPEC+ oil cartels on Friday, calling it a strategic decision.

Still, CNN also cited sources familiar with the mediation as saying the two sides were not as far apart as they seemed.

It added that intense diplomacy continued and talks were focused on a staged process with the first part of a potential deal aimed at returning to the pre-war status and reopening the Strait.

Iran’s nuclear programme would be dealt with down the line, it said.

Equity markets were mixed, with Hong Kong, Shanghai, Jakarta and Manila up while Sydney, Singapore, Seoul and Taipei fell.

Traders were given a weak lead from Wall Street, where the Nasdaq-led losses owing to a tech selloff that came on the back of a report in the Wall Street Journal that ChatGPT-maker OpenAI had missed targets on the number of users and revenue.

The news came as markets gear up for the release of earnings from Wall Street titans Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft this week.

The Federal Reserve will also conclude a two-day meeting later in the day, with investors keeping tabs on its outlook for inflation and interest rates as energy costs soar.