China's industrial profits rise 2.6% in July

The profits of China's major industrial firms rose 2.6 percent year on year in July, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Tuesday.

The growth came after a 3.1 percent decline in June.

Challenges still remain to keep industrial profit growth stable, due to economic downward pressure, easing market demand and dropping industrial product prices, said NBS senior statistician Zhu Hong.

Petrochemicals, electrical machinery and automobiles are key industries pushing the growth rate of industrial profits in July, Zhu said.

Manufacturing of consumer goods saw robust profit growth of 10 percent in July, 6.1 percentage points higher than that in June, and equipment manufacturing reported profit growth of 4.8 percent in July, compared with the 1.1 percent decrease in June, Zhu said.

Private enterprises' industrial profits were up 11.4 percent year on year, 9.7 percentage points higher than that in June.

In the first seven months, the profits of China's major industrial firms dropped 1.7 percent to 3.5 trillion yuan (about US$494 billion), narrowing by 0.7 percentage points from that for the first half.

Profits of state-owned industrial firms dropped 8.1 percent from one year earlier to 1.08 billion yuan, while those of private ones gained 7 percent to 884.91 billion yuan in the first seven months.

During the period, profits of the mining industry climbed 4.2 percent, while those for the manufacturing industry dropped 3.4 percent.

Profits at 29 of the 41 industrial sectors surveyed rose compared with one year earlier, while 12 sectors saw their profits fall in the first seven months, according to the NBS.

The revenue of major industrial firms amounted to 59.58 trillion yuan, up 4.9 percent year on year, and their operating costs rose 5.2 percent to 50.27 trillion yuan during the period.

By the end of July, assets of the major industrial firms rose 5.9 percent to 114.75 trillion yuan, while liabilities expanded 4.9 percent to 65.16 trillion yuan. The ratio of liabilities to assets stood at 56.8 percent, 0.5 percentage points lower from a year earlier.