China's industrial profits up 19.1 pct in August

Profits of China's major industrial firms totaled 612.81 billion yuan (about 90 billion U.S. dollars) in August, increasing by 19.1 percent year on year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Sunday.

The growth narrowed 0.5 percentage points from July.

In the first eight months of the year, the profits of major industrial firms declined 4.4 percent to 3.72 trillion yuan, narrowing 3.7 percentage points from the January-July period.

Profits of state-controlled industrial firms dropped 17 percent from one year earlier to 950.94 billion yuan, while those of private ones shrank 3.3 percent year on year to 1.07 trillion yuan.

During the January-August period, profits of the mining industry slumped 38.1 percent, and manufacturing industry profits decreased by 1 percent.

Profits in 16 of the 41 surveyed industrial sectors rose compared with the same period last year, while 25 sectors saw their profits fall, according to the NBS.

Major industrial companies refer to those with an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan.