The profits of Chinese industrial businesses reached 482.56 billion yuan (78.45 billion U.S. dollars) in August, down 0.6 percent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced on Saturday.
The profit growth slowed sharply compared to the 13.5-percent growth in July, reported China's news agency (Xinhua).
NBS data showed that the total profits of industrial companies during the first eight months reached 3.83 trillion yuan, up 10 percent year on year though the growth rate decelerated by 1.7 percentage points from the January-July period.