Profits down 10% this year at Chinese State firms

Profits at China’s state firms fell 9.8% in the first 10 months of this year, the country’s Ministry of Finance said yesterday, with commodities-linked companies bearing the brunt of the pain.

The near double-digit fall in profits in January-October from a year earlier was worse than the 8.2% drop in the first nine months of the year.

Combined profits of state-owned enterprises totalled 1.88 trillion yuan in the January-October period, the ministry said in a statement published on its website.