China industrial profits up 53.5% in first nine months

Chinese industrial profits rose 53.5percent year on year in the first nine months of 2010, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Thursday.

That growth rate was 2.8 percentage points lower than that in the first eight months. It was also lower than the 81.6-percent increase recorded in the first five months of the year.

Profits at Chinese industrial enterprises whose annual sales exceed 5 million yuan (746,268 U.S. dollars) totaled 2.49 trillion yuan in the nine-month period.

Combined revenues for Chinese industrial enterprises rose 32.6 percent year on year to 40.32 trillion yuan in the period.

That growth rate was 1.1 percentage points lower than that in the January-to-August period, the NBS said.