File photo: VCG

BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Financial results from 1,500 listed firms showed the net profits of a majority of them rose in the first half of 2019, the Shanghai Securities News reported Friday.

Of those firms that had disclosed H1 results by Thursday, 960 reported year-on-year growth in net profits attributable to shareholders, accounting for 64 percent of the total, according to the paper.

Most of the companies are in the sectors of mechanical equipment, finance, agriculture and communications.

Their combined profits rose 20.93 percent to 681.73 billion yuan (about 96 billion U.S. dollars), while revenues rose 13.57 percent to 6.9 trillion yuan in H1.

Meanwhile, their average ratio of liabilities to assets stood at 40.29 percent at the end of June, down from 42.36 percent at the end of June 2018 and 44.68 percent at the end of 2018.