Profits of companies controlled by China's central government continued to fall in the first seven months, but at a slower pace, the state-owned enterprise (SOE) watchdog said Tuesday.

The 136 SOEs directly controlled by the central government generated total profits of 398.35 billion yuan (US$58.31 billion) from January to July, down 20.9 percent year on year.

The decline was 5.3 percentage points lower than the January-June figure, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).

The profits for July alone were 80.98 billion yuan, a rise of 7.7 percent from June.

Sales revenue in the first seven months fell 6.2 percent from the same period a year ago to 6.39 trillion yuan. The decrease was 0.1 percentage points lower than the first half.

(Xinhua News Agency August 26, 2009)