China's 39 major light industry companies registered a combined profit of 4.6 billion yuan (567 million US dollars) in the first half of this year, up 11.6 percent over the same period last year, according to statistics from the State Assets Supervision and Management Commission released in Beijing Wednesday.

The figure was 5.4 percentage points lower than in the first quarter, said the commission, contributing that to the rapid increase of cost.

In January-June period, these companies reported income from main businesses of 61 billion yuan (7.52 billion dollars), up 24.9 percent on a year-on-year basis.

But the commission said that the cost of these companies also increased by a large margin of 28.3 percent to reach 47.77 billion yuan (5.89 billion dollars), which encroached on gains.

Source: Xinhua