China's state-owned firms saw their profits fall sharply in the first four months, the government said Wednesday, in yet another sign the Chinese economy continued to suffer from the global crisis.

State-owned enterprises across the country made 323.6 billion yuan (47.4 billion dollars) in profit from January to April, down 32.3 percent from the same period of 2008, said a statement posted on the finance ministry's website.

But the decline was smaller than that seen in the first quarter, when profits dropped by 36.8 percent on year, according to the statement.

Revenues of the companies also decreased in the first four months of the year, falling 7.3 percent year on year to 6.0 trillion yuan, it added.

As a result, taxes paid by state-owned companies in the period fell by 9.1 percent to 577.6 billion yuan, the statement said.

China's trade-reliant economy has been severely impacted by the global crisis, with economic growth expected to slow to a 19-year low of 6.5 percent in 2009, according to the World Bank.

The tougher times are hurting the corporate sector, including state companies which have increasingly been forced to operate on market conditions.

China needs more than stimulus to sustain growth: World Bank

China needs to do more to tackle the global economic crisis as the government-driven stimulus package alone cannot support long-term growth, a senior official of the World Bank said Wednesday.

"The stimulus package is large, having a good effect, and the right thing to do," said David Dollar, the development bank's China director, referring to China's 580-billion-dollar scheme unveiled in November to prop up the economy.

"But … stimulus by itself cannot be the source of long-term sustainable growth," he said at a forum in Beijing.

Urban fixed-asset investment, a main indicator of progress in lifting growth by injecting massive amounts of public funds into infrastructure projects, rose 30.5 percent on-year in the first four months, official data showed.

However, private investment fell sharply in the first quarter, Dollar said, suggesting it was too early to say the Chinese economy was recovering.

"Until we see a recovery in private investment, it's hard to get too excited about the future," he said.

China's economy grew 6.1 percent in the first quarter, the slowest growth in at least a decade and down from 6.8 percent in the final three months of 2008, as exports weakened dramatically due to the financial crisis.

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