Profits of China's major industrial firms fell 14 percent year-on-year in the January-February period, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The NBS data showed that the combined profits of industrial firms with annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan ($2.98 million) stood at 708.01 billion yuan ($105.10 billion) in the first two months of 2019, added the China Daily report.

Zhu Hong, an NBS senior statistician, attributed the decline to lower profits at some major industries and disruptions caused by the Spring Festival holiday in February.

Zhu added that after being adjusted for the Spring Festival factor, the profits of major industrial firms were basically flat or slightly down from the same period of last year.

Auto, petroleum processing, steel and chemical industries saw profits markedly pared by falling product prices, dragging the overall industrial profit growth down by 14.2 percentage points, according to Zhu.

In addition, compared with the same period of last year, the Spring Festival holiday had a longer impact on industrial production as it came earlier this year, the statistician noted.