BEIJING (Reuters) - Profits at China's industrial firms in September rose 16.3% on year to 738.74 billion yuan, following a 10.1% rise in August, even as surging raw material prices and supply bottlenecks squeezed margins and weighed on factory activity.

       For the January-September period, industrial firms' profits grew 44.7%% year-on-year, slowing from a 49.5% increase in the first eight months of 2021, the statistics bureau said on Wednesday.

       Liabilities at industrial firms rose 8.2% from a year earlier at end-September, down from 8.4% growth as of end-August.

       The industrial profit data covers large firms with annual revenues of over 20 million yuan from their main operations.

       (Reporting by Gabriel Crossley and Liangping Gao; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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