NBS: China industrial firms' Jan-May profits tumble 19%

China's sizable industrial firms saw their gross profits decline by 18.8% on year to Yuan 2.67 trillion ($369 billion) in the first five months of this year, according to the latest release by the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on June 28. Nevertheless, the pace of decline was slower by 1.8 percentage points than that during the prior four months, the NBS data showed.

For May alone, Chinese industrial firms' gross profits totalled Yuan 635.8 billion, down 12.6% on year, according to the NBS. Notably, the decline pace of May has narrowed for three consecutive months and was also smaller than the 18.2% on-year fall in April. "Enterprises' profits have been showing a steady