Chinese listed companies net profit up 450% in Q1

Special
Report: Global Financial Crisis

BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) -- The combined net profit of
all the 1,624 listed companies in the Chinese mainland hit 203.8 billion yuan
(about 30 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter, up 450.39 percent from the
last quarter in 2008, reports from the country's two main exchanges showed
Monday.

Among them, 1,186 companies reported gains, taking up
73.03 percent of the total. The number of companies suffering losses increased
nearly 200 compared with the same period last year to 436.

The total net profit in the first three months
dropped 25.81 percent year on year.

"The quarter-on-quarter profit surge showed
production began to stabilize in the first three months after taking the major
blow from the global financial crisis in the fourth quarter last year," said Qin
Xiaobin, chief analyst with Beijing-based Galaxy Securities.

Measures issued by the government to support the key
industries also helped with the profit rise, experts said.

However, companies are still troubled with
over-capacity that led to the year-on-year decline and it is still too early to
tell if the overall economy has bottomed out, according to Qin.