Many of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported drops in profits in Q1, as building materials, electronics and tobacco firms reported large profit declines, Ministry of Finance data showed on Tuesday.
The combined profits of China's SOEs fell 13.8 percent year on year to 432 billion yuan (67 billion U.S. dollars) in the first three months. The decline narrowed from a 14.2-percent drop seen in the January-February period.
Total business revenue for state firms in Q1 decreased 3 percent from a year ago to 9.95 trillion yuan, while operating costs went down 3 percent to 9.7 trillion yuan.
SOEs in the areas of petrochemicals and medicine saw profits grow, while oil, coal, steel and non-ferrous metals lost out.
By the end of March, total assets of SOEs stood at 122.5 trillion yuan, while liabilities grew 18.1 percent year on year to 81.2 trillion yuan.
The figures, which exclude financial firms, were collected from SOEs in 36 provincial-level regions and those administered by the central government. China has about 150,000 SOEs.
