China's December industrial profits decline nearly 2 pct versus 2017

Profits notched up by China's industrial firms declined 1.9 percent from a year earlier to 680.8 billion yuan ($100.9 billion) in December, the statistics bureau said on Monday. For the full-year of 2018, industrial profits increased 10.3 percent on an annual basis to 6.64 trillion yuan, versus the 11.8 percent gain in the January-November period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on its website.

Chinese industrial firms' liabilities rose 5.2 percent from a year earlier to 64.1 trillion yuan by end-2018, compared with a 5.8 percent rise as of end-November. China reported its weakest annual economic growth in 28 years earlier this month, highlighting rising downward pressure faced by the world's second-largest economy as it tries to resolve a bruising trade dispute with the United States. ($1 = 6.7448 Chinese yuan)