Profits at China's centrally-held state firms rose 13.1% in the first quarter from a year earlier to 426.5 billion yuan, the regulator for state assets said. That was slower than the 20.9% growth in earnings for the first quarter of 2018 and the 16.7% increase for the whole of 2018.

For March only, profits increased 10.8% on-year, slowing from the January-February gain of 15.3%, according to a statement by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).