SOEs see smaller losses

Fourteen central government-administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) that recorded huge losses in the first half of 2012 reported improved performance in the first six months of 2013, mainly due to income from asset sales, Shanghai Securities News reported Tuesday.

The 14 centrally administered SOEs recorded 2.6 billion yuan ($424 million) in losses during the January-June period, greatly reduced from 15.2 billion yuan in the same period a year earlier, according to their first-half reports released recently. These firms suffered a combined loss of 47.2 billion yuan in 2012.