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Chinese state firms' profits slump due to economic slowdown

Hit by the economic slowdown, profits of China's mighty state-owned enterprises (SOEs) nosedived by 14.2 per cent to USD 34.2 billion in the first two months of this year, according to official data released on Friday

Beijing: Hit by the economic slowdown, profits of China's mighty state-owned enterprises (SOEs) nosedived by 14.2 percent to USD 34.2 billion in the first two months of this year, according to official data released on Friday. 

SOEs saw combined profits decelerated to 14.2 percent year-on-year in the Jan-Feb period to 222.6 billion yuan (USD 34.2 billion), a much sharper drop than the 6.7 percent fall recorded for 2015, data from the Ministry of Finance showed.

The state sector continued to face great downward pressure, the ministry said in a statement.

SOEs administered by local governments were the worst hit, with their profits plunging 40.9 percent from a year earlier.

Centrally-administered SOEs saw profits slip 8.2 percent year-on-year.

Total business revenue of Chinese SOEs dipped 5.8 percent year-on-year to 6.2 trillion yuan in the first two months, the ministry said.

As of the end of February, combined debts of the state firms swelled by 17.9 percent to 79.7 trillion yuan, while their total assets expanded 15.6 per cent to 120.3 trillion yuan.

State firms in medical and machinery sectors posted relatively high profit growth, while oil, coal, steel and non-ferrous metals continued to suffer losses, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The figures, which exclude financial firms, were collected from SOEs in 36 provincial-level regions and those administered by the central government.

China has about 150,000 SOEs, and some have become ossified by declining profitability due to a lack of competition and an industrial glut.

The government is trying to improve their fortunes through reform, moving toward mixed ownership and market-oriented management in the hope that this will improve their efficiency.

The Chinese economy, the world's second-largest, last year slowed down to 6.9 percent, the lowest in 26 years.