China's industrial profits down 2% in August
Updated 11:30, 27-Sep-2019
CGTN

August saw profits of China's major industrial firms drop two percent year-on-year to 517.8 billion yuan (72.62 billion U.S. dollars), data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Friday. 

China's industrial profits had risen 2.6 percent in the previous month.

From January to August, total profits of China's major industrial firms reached 4.02 trillion yuan, down 1.7 percent from a year earlier. The rate of decline was the same as in the first seven months, data from the NBS showed.

Zhu Hong, an NBS senior statistician, attributed the contraction in August to factors including slowing sales, falling producer prices and a super typhoon, in a statement accompanying the data.

Private sector profits reached 1.13 trillion yuan, a rise of 6.5 percent in the January to August period. Industrial firms' liabilities increased five percent from a year earlier to 65.81 trillion yuan at the end of August.

The data covers companies with more than 20 million yuan in annual revenues from their main operations.