Industrial enterprises in China's 22 regions reported a combined profit of 1.55 trillion yuan ($227.5 billion) in first nine months, down 9.1 percent year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Wednesday.

NBS statistics showed the decline was four percentage points less than that of January-August period.

Core business revenues of those companies reached 28.8 trillion yuan in the first nine months, up 3.4 percent from a year earlier. The growth rate was 1.5 percentage points higher than that of the first eight months.

The accounts receivable of enterprises in the 22 regions stood at about 3.56 trillion yuan at the end of September, up 10.6 percent year on year.

The 22 regions comprise all of China's provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions except Beijing, Chongqing, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, Hunan, Guangdong, Anhui, Hainan and Yunnan provinces, and the Tibet autonomous region.