Railway operator 1H net profit up on soaring offshore business

China Railway Construction Corp (CRCC) (601186.SH, 1186 HK) said Tuesday its first-half net profit was up 22% year-on-year to US$222.69 million (RMB1.525 billion) on US$12.01 billion (RMB82.236 billion) in revenue, up 12% year-on-year, the Shanghai Securities News reported. Revenues from domestic business grew 7.57% to US$11.17 billion (RMB76.501 billion) over the period, while revenues from offshore business surged 156% to US$837.46 million (RMB5.735 billion). CRCC signed US$20.09 billion (RMB137.6 billion) worth of contracts over the period, up 117% on the same period last year, US$3.70 billion (RMB25.37 billion) of which were from overseas, up 152% year-on-year. CRCC went public in Shanghai and Hong Kong at the beginning of year, slashing 18.96 percentage points off its assets/liabilities ratio, whoch stood at 77.68% as of June 30, 2008.