Industrial profits fall in first two months

Chinese industrial firms earned a combined 219.1 billion yuan in profits in the first two months of this year, down 37.3 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday.

Profits of State-owned companies fell 59.2 percent in January through February this year from the same period last year, while foreign-funded firms suffered a 39.3 percent fall.

Private industrial enterprises, however, saw a 3.3-percent year-on-year growth in their earnings in the same period.