The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council released here Thursday that 23 state-owned big pharmaceutical businesses and 25 such construction material manufacturers saw slowdown in profits from January to October this year.

The pharmaceutical businesses gained profits worth 3.53 billionyuan (425 million US dollars) in the first ten months of 2004, decreasing 18.9 percent compared with that in the same period lastyear.

The construction material manufacturers earned 3.74 billion yuan worth of profits from January to October, an increase of 78.2percent, which was 137.2 and 22.7 percentage points less than the growth figures respectively in the first half and first three quarters of this year.

Statistics from the SASAC showed that in the first ten months, the pharmaceutical businesses achieved 44.46 billion yuan worth ofindustrial output, decreasing by 0.1 percent compared with the same period last year.

Three pharmaceutical businesses out of the total saw losses worth 500 million yuan.

From January to October, the statistics showed, the construction material manufacturers earned 38.93 billion yuan worth of industrial output, with an increase of 43.4 percent. Because electricity shortage was alleviated in October, the construction material manufacturers reached larger scale in production.

Mandated by the State Council, the SASAC controls and supervises 187 large state-owned companies.

Source: Xinhua