Economy still on track to steady growth

The Chinese economy is still on track to a steady recovery with a gradual normalization of activities and strong policy support, as profits at China's major industrial companies declined at a slower pace in August, officials and experts said on Tuesday.

Zhu Hong, a senior statistician at the National Bureau of Statistics, said that industrial profits improved in August, registering a narrowed year-on-year contraction compared with the previous month.

Zhou Maohua, an analyst at China Everbright Bank, highlighted the improvement in profits earned by midstream and downstream manufacturing enterprises amid the government's effective measures to ensure stable prices and supplies, ease enterprises' burdens and increase financial support, saying that will help to stimulate market vitality, boost employment and expand consumption demand.

Equipment manufacturing enterprises' profits fell 2 percent on a yearly basis in the first eight months, narrowing from a 5.7 percent decline in the first seven months, while profits at auto manufacturing enterprises increased 1.02 times in August, according to data released by the NBS on Tuesday.

In August, China's value-added industrial output grew 4.2 percent from a year earlier, while factory-gate inflation eased in August to an 18-month low.