China's March industrial profits up 3.1%

[BEIJING]  Profits earned by China's industrial firms rose 3.1 per cent in March from a year earlier, slowing sharply from the pace seen early in the year, the statistics bureau said on Friday.

Profits in March rose to 589.75 billion yuan (S$123.6 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on its website.

In the first quarter, industrial profits climbed 11.6 per cent from a year earlier to 1.55 trillion yuan, compared with growth of 16.1 per cent in the first two months.

Industrial firms' liabilities in March rose 5.8 per cent from a year earlier, slowing from a 6.0 per cent increase in the first two months of 2018.

REUTERS