The decline in profits of China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) continued in the first half, but at a slower rate, the SOE watchdog said Tuesday.

The 136 SOEs directly controlled by the central government notched up profits of 316.03 billion yuan ($46.27 billion) in the first half, said Li Rongrong, director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, at an SOE conference in Beijing.

Profits dropped 26.2 percent over the same period last year, but the rate of decrease was 15.6 percentage points lower than the first quarter. In June alone, the profits hit 75.19 billion yuan, an increase of 29.5 percent over that in May.

The business revenue of the centrally-administered SOEs in the first half stood at 5.36 trillion yuan, down 6.3 percent year on year, but the rate of decrease was 2.8 percentage points lower than the first quarter.

Business revenue last month was 1.17 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.4 percent over June last year, an increase of 23.2 percent over May.

Taxes paid by these enterprises in the first half were down 1.5 percent from a year earlier to stand at 523.68 billion yuan.

Li attributed the slowing decline to government efforts to improve SOE asset quality and competitiveness through consolidation this year.

The centrally-administered SOEs were cut to 136 enterprises from 142 in the first half.

Li said some enterprises still needed to react quicker to market demand and adjust their development strategies to avoid risks.

"Enterprises should attach great importance to problems, and try to upgrade technology and management abilities," Li said.

(Xinhua News Agency July 21, 2009)