BEIJING (Reuters) - Profits earned by Chinese industrial firms fell 0.4 per cent in March from a year earlier to 508.61 billion yuan (S$109.27 billion), the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

That compared with a 4.2 per cent year-on-year fall in the first two months of this year.

For the first quarter of this year, profits are down 2.7 per cent from a year earlier to 1.25 trillion yuan, the bureau said.

The world's second-largest economy grew at its slowest pace in six years in the first quarter of 2015 and weakness in key sectors suggested the economy was still losing momentum into April, intensifying Beijing's struggle to find the right policy mix to shore up activity.