China's alcohol-making industry posts rising profits in first nine months

China's major alcohol companies saw profits rise 7.1 percent year on year to 127.72 billion yuan (about 19.27 billion U.S. dollars) in the first nine months of this year, according to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

   During the same period, alcohol-makers with more than 20 million yuan in annual revenue registered a total revenue of 601.02 billion yuan, down 0.3 percent from a year earlier, the ministry said.

   Chinese liquor-making enterprises saw output reach 4.78 million kiloliters in the January-September period, down 10.4 percent year on year.

   The output of breweries went down 6.8 percent year on year, while that of wine-making companies dropped 23.5 percent year on year in the same period.