Profits of China's major industrial firms dropped 2.1 percent year on year in the first nine months, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Sunday. 

The decline narrowed from the 3.3-percent year-on-year drop in the first quarter (Q1) and 1.9 percent in Q2 to 1.8 percent in Q3, said NBS senior statistician Zhu Hong. 

Specifically, profits of state-owned industrial firms dropped 9.6 percent from one year earlier to 1.39 trillion yuan (about 196.47 billion U.S. dollars), while those in the private sector gained 5.4 percent year on year to 1.26 trillion yuan in the first nine months. 

During the period, profits of the mining industry climbed 3.1 percent to 427.94 billion yuan, while the manufacturing industry dropped 3.9 percent to 3.79 trillion yuan. 

The structural improvement of industrial firms resulted in more sectors experiencing profit growth, said Zhu. 

Profits in 30 of the 41 industrial sectors surveyed rose compared with one year earlier, according to the NBS.

The revenue of industrial firms with annual income of more than 20 million yuan amounted to 77.67 trillion yuan, up 4.5 percent year on year, while their business costs climbed by 4.8 percent to 65.51 trillion yuan during the period. 

The profit growth in the high-tech manufacturing and strategic emerging sectors improved in the first nine months, Zhu said. 

Profits of high-tech manufacturing rose by 6.3 percent year on year in the first nine months, 3.5 percentage points higher than the first eight months. 

From January to September, profits in the strategic emerging sector rose by 4.6 percent year on year, 1.6 percentage points higher than that of the January-August period.