Downward Pressure and Yuan

business revenue: Although the decline narrowed from a 9.5-percent drop seen in the January-November period, the ministry said downward pressure remained "relatively big." Total business revenue for state firms decreased 5.4 percent from a year ago to 45.47 trillion yuan, while operating costs went down 4.8 percent to 44.52 trillion yuan, according to Xinhua China. SOEs in the areas of transportation, petrochemicals and machinery saw profit growth, while the steel and non-ferrous metal sectors continued to suffer losses. The combined profits of China SOEs fell 6.7 percent year on year to 2.3 trillion yuan last year. By the end of last year, total assets of SOEs stood at 119.2 trillion yuan, while liabilities grew 18.5 percent year on year to 79.1 trillion yuan. China has about 150,000 SOEs, and many have become ossified by declining profitability due to a lack of competition. The figures, which exclude financial firms, were collected from SOEs in 36 provincial-level regions and those administered by the central government. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.