Under the impact of the global economic downturn, profit making central public sector enterprises

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are expected to see an average dip of 15-20 per cent in their earnings in 2008-09, CPSEs' body SCOPE's chief Arup Roy Choudhury has said.

"The profit-making PSUs are likely to see their profit declining by 15-20 per cent in 2008-09 over the previous fiscal. But the performance would vary from sector to sector," Choudhury, who is the Chairman of Standing Conference on Public Enterprises, told PTI.

Though the number of profit-making CPSEs would not have gone up, the government-owned firms have faced the challenge of slowdown without slipping into the red, Choudhury, who is also the CMD of National Buildings Construction Corp, said.

During 2008-09, state-run companies like MMTC have posted a decline of 17 per cent in net profit compared to previous fiscal, while State Trading Corporation's profit fell 38 per cent, National Railway Catering & Tourism's 16 per cent and Bharat Electronics Ltd's 2.6 per cent. Many other CPSEs are yet to announce their financial results for last fiscal.

Riding on robust economic growth in the last four years the state-run firms have consistently put up good performance and the number of profit making CPSEs rose from 143 CPSEs in 2004-05 to 159 in 2007-08.

The number of loss-making units came down from 73 to 54 in the same period.