Industrial firms' profit rises 9.4 pct

Chinese industrial firms saw their profits rise 9.4 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2014, official data showed on Thursday, just over half the growth from the same period a year earlier, adding to signs of an economic slowdown.

Total profits of industrial companies with annual business revenue of more than 20 million yuan ($3.25 million) reached 779.3 billion yuan in the January to February period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

The latest profit growth rate fell significantly compared with 17.2 percent year-on-year growth for the first two months of 2013. It is also lower than that for the whole of 2013, which stood at 12.2 percent, indicating the economy has lost some steam for growth

In a breakdown of sectors, private firms outperform the State-owned enterprises, according to the NBS.

The profits of private firms in China rose the fastest at 16.4 percent to reach 260.3 billion yuan during the first two months.

In stark contrast, State-owned and State-holding industrial enterprises achieved total profits of 216.9 billion yuan, down by 0.2 percent year-on-year, the data showed.

The combined profits of foreign-funded enterprises and companies funded out of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan stood at 181.5 billion yuan, up 14.5 percent year-on-year, the NBS said.

Joint-stock enterprises achieved total profits of 445.6 billion yuan, an increase of 6.9 percent from a year earlier.

Industrial firms in the mining industry achieved total profits of 103.8 billion yuan in the first two months, tumbling 18.5 percent year-on-year.

Companies in the manufacturing sector saw their profits rise 14.8 percent year-on-year to 610.9 billion yuan in the same period.

Previously released economic data also pointed to a cooling economy. Growth in investment, retail sales and factory output in January to February all fell to multi-year lows.

China's industrial output rose 8.6 percent in the first two months of 2014 from a year earlier, the NBS said on March 13, missing market expectations for a 9.5 percent rise.

That marked the worst performance for China's factory output growth since April 2009.

The weaker-than-expected data is bound to amplify global investors' worries about slackening growth in the world's second largest economy, and will feed speculation that -Chinese policymakers may loosen policies soon to bolster growth.