SHANGHAI, Dec 26: China’s industrial firms posted combined profits of 2.4 trillion yuan ($350 billion) in the first 11 months of 2008, up 4.9 per cent from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday.

The figure represented a sharp decline from 36.7 per cent growth in the same period last year, providing the latest evidence that the nation’s economy is quickly losing steam.

Among decliners, state-owned firms performed the worst with total profits down 14.5 per cent in January through November year-on-year to 798.5 billion yuan, the bureau said in a statement.

Profits of foreign-funded companies, including those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, fell 3.1 per cent to 637.4 billion yuan for the same period.

But private-owned firms saw profits rise 36.6 per cent to 549.5 billion yuan while joint stock enterprises posted profit growth of 11.4 per cent to 1.3 trillion yuan, it said.

The statement also said profits in the oil processing and refinery industry lost a combined 126 billion yuan compared with a net profit of 24.5 billion a year earlier. Steel firm profits also fell 13.7 per cent in the first 11 months.—AFP