China's industrial profits up 19.1% in August

The profits of China's major industrial enterprises grew 19.1 percent year-on-year in August, as improvement of both supply and demand has driven sales growth of industrial companies, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Sunday.

The total value of the country's major industrial firms' profits stood at 612.81 billion yuan ($89.8 billion) in August. The profit growth rate was slightly slower than July's 19.6 percent, according to the NBS.

In the first eight months of this year, the profits of major industrial firms declined 4.4 percent to 3.72 trillion yuan, narrowing 3.7 percentage points from the January-July period.

The continuous improvement of supply and demand has helped boost companies' sales growth. Supportive government policies, including large-scale tax and fee cuts as well as reductions in electricity, land and rental costs, have effectively reduced the companies' overall operational costs, the NBS said.