August 24 -- Beijing Tongrentang (600085.SH) posted a 27.6 percent increase in net profit from the first half of 2011 to 259 million yuan, with earnings per share of 0.497 yuan, reports yicai.com, citing a company filing. Percentage changes cited in this report are year-on-year.

Revenue jumped 24.53 percent to 2.52 billion yuan during the reporting period. Specifically, earnings from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) was 2.503 billion yuan.

The price of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) of TCM rose 23.7 percent in the first half of 2011, according to data from zyctd.com. An expert from zyctd.com predicts the prices of API of TCM will fall 15-20 percent over the next two to three months. The output of commonly used APIs will rebound this year, while the prices of APIs with long growing periods, such as ginseng and pseudo-ginseng, will remain level.

Beijing Tongrentang said it was handling procedures regarding investment in Beijing Tongrentang Commercial Investment. It will inject assets of Tongrentang retail stores and equities of 23 retail stores into Beijing Tongrentang Commercial.