Aggregate quake losses in China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have surpassed 80 billion yuan (US$11.4 billion), more than double the preliminary estimate of 30 billion yuan, a State Council official said on Friday.

The quake caused 41.4 billion yuan in direct economic losses to these SOEs, Liu Nanchang, official with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) told an online interview.

Electric and telecommunication companies took the brunt of the impact, with many of them also victims of the worst-in-50-year winter snowstorms, Liu said.

The State Grid Corp. of China and four telecommunication firms combined reported a loss of more than 20 billion yuan, he said.

Many companies had to halt production and cut orders because of the damaged facilities, making them lose another 40.1 billion yuan.

Nearly 3,600 employers of these centrally-administered SOEs had been killed or injured, according to Liu.

These losses, however, would have limited impact on the development of these companies compared with their sizes, he said, adding some might miss their annual targets this year.

(Xinhua News Agency July 5, 2008)