China central SOEs' profits down in Jan-July

BEIJING -- China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises saw net profits down 16.1 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of this year to 459.38 billion yuan ($72.92 billion).

The drop narrowed 0.3 percentage point from the first half of this year, China's State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council said in a statement on Friday.

The SASAC did not say the reasons behind the decline in profits.

Dwindling orders from Europe and other trade partners have sapped China's exports and, combined with a cooling property sector, slowed the country's economic growth rate to 7.6 percent in the second quarter. This is the lowest level since the first quarter of 2009.

During the same period, total revenue of central SOEs rose 8.4 percent to 12.33 trillion yuan year-on-year, and taxes and fees handed in by those companies increased 13.8 percent to 1.26 trillion yuan, the statement said.