China's major industrial enterprises reported a combined profit of 1.67 trillion yuan (245.2 billion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months this year, down 10.6 percent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Sunday.

The fall compares to a 19.4-percent increase during the January-August period last year.

The NBS statistics cover the profits of major industrial enterprises, defined as those with more than 5 million yuan in revenue from their main business annually.

The bureau said profits in state-owned industrial companies declined 25.2 percent to 504.5 billion yuan. However, profits in privately-owned industrial firms rose 6.6 percent year on year to 439.9 billion yuan.

Profits in the power generation sector increased by 194 percent during the January-August period. Oil refineries and coking plants moved to a profit of 71.2 billion yuan from a loss of 94.2 billion yuan in the same period last year.

Profits in other sectors, including oil and gas exploration, steel and non-ferrous metal smelting, dropped more than 50 percent.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2009)