BEIJING, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Listed companies' profits grew less than half as fast in the first half of 2008 as they did a year earlier, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday.

    The newspaper said as of Monday, 1,178 listed companies, or 72.8 percent of the total, had released interim statements.

    These reports showed they earned 323.14 billion yuan (47.2 billion U.S. dolla