Industrial profits in China rose 55 percent in the first eight months of 2010 from the same period last year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.

The growth in profits marked a slowdown from the increase of 81.6percent in the first five months of the year.

The NBS said, from January to August, profits of China's industrial enterprises, referring to those with annual sales exceeding five million yuan (US$746,194) each, totaled 2.6 trillion yuan.

Combined revenues for the industrial enterprises in China stood at 43.1 trillion yuan in the first eight months, up 33.4 percent from a year earlier.

However, the growth rate was 4.8 percentage points lower than that of the January-to-May period, said the NBS.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2010)