BEIJING — The profits of China's major industrial firms rose 2.6 percent year-on-year in July, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Aug 27.

The growth came after a 3.1 percent decline in June.

Challenges still remain to keep industrial profit growth stable, due to economic downward pressure, easing market demand and dropping industrial product prices, said NBS senior statistician Zhu Hong.

Petrochemicals, electrical machinery and automobiles are key industries pushing the growth rate of industrial profits in July, Zhu said.

Manufacturing of consumer goods saw robust profit growth of 10 percent in July, 6.1 percentage points higher than that in June, and equipment manufacturing reported profit growth of 4.8 percent in July, compared with the 1.1 percent decrease in June, Zhu said.

Private enterprises' industrial profits were up 11.4 percent year-on-year, 9.7 percentage points higher than that in June.

In the first seven months, the profits of China's major industrial firms dropped 1.7 percent to 3.5 trillion yuan ($494.03 billion) and the decrease rate was 0.7 percentage points lower than that in the first half year.

Profits of State-owned industrial firms dropped 8.1 percent from one year earlier to 1.08 billion yuan, while those of private ones gained 7 percent to 884.91 billion yuan year-on-year in the first seven months.

During the period, profits of the mining industry climbed 4.2 percent to 335.44 billion yuan, while the manufacturing industry dropped 3.4 percent to 2.88 trillion yuan.

Profits at 29 of the 41 industrial sectors surveyed rose compared with one year earlier, while 12 sectors saw their profits fall, according to the NBS.

The revenue of the major industrial firms, with annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan, amounted to 59.58 trillion yuan, up 4.9 percent year-on-year and their business costs climbed 5.2 percent to 50.27 trillion yuan during the period.

By the end of July, assets of the major industrial firms rose 5.9 percent to 114.75 trillion yuan, while liabilities expanded 4.9 percent to 65.16 trillion yuan. The ratio of liabilities to assets stood at 56.8 percent, 0.5 percentage points lower from a year earlier.