China Resources profit falls 19% amid rising costs

China Resources Enterprise (0291.HKG), a Mainland Chinese retailer, has announced that profit fell by 19% despite sales growing in the third quarter, citing rising labor costs for the fall in profits, South China Morning Post reported. While the company, distributor of the most popular beer brand in China, Snow, saw its profit in the third quarter of 2013 drop by nearly a fifth year-on-year to US$118 million, sales rose 19% to US$5.2 billion. Increases in minimum wage and salary rises have cut the underlying profit in its retail division by 2.6% to US$10 million.