The growth in the profit of China's major state-owned electricity, coal and oil and petrochemical companies declined in the first nine months this year, according to figures released by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) on Sunday.

In the nine months, the profit of the 15 major state-owned electricity companies approached 39 billion yuan (4.8 billion US dollars), up 10.7 percent year on year; and the growth rate was 2.3 percentage points lower than in the January-June period.

The profit of the 32 major state-owned coal companies grew 84.9percent to nearly 28 billion yuan, and that of the three major state-owned oil and petrochemical companies rose 29.7 percent to 182.9 billion yuan, with the growth rate dropping by 13.4 and 7.1 percentage points, respectively, from that in the first half year.

From January to September, the electricity companies saw slower growth in profit than in production and sales, the coal producers had their profits almost double their income growth, and the oil and petrochemical companies reported basically similar growth in profit and sales income.

The commission's statistics show that in the first nine months, the income from the major business of the 15 electricity companies grew 22.8 percent to 1.11 trillion yuan, that of the 32 coal companies jumped 43.6 percent to 212.59 billion yuan, and that of the three oil and petrochemical companies rose 29.4 percent to 1.15 billion yuan.

According to a survey on the major electricity companies, the rising price of energy and raw materials is the main factor affecting their operations. The ensuing pressure on cost has resulted in a lower profit expectation, and most companies say they are not optimistic about a downward movement of energy and raw materials prices next year.

The statistics showed that electricity production in September also declined due to weakened demand. Electricity generated in the month totaled 204.9 billion kwh across China, 14.8 billion kwh less than in August.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2005)