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

BEIJING -- China's major alcohol companies saw profits rise 7.1 percent year-on-year to 127.72 billion yuan (about $19.27 billion) 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.