March 31 (Reuters) - Chinese newspapers available in Beijing and Shanghai carried the following stories on Monday. Reuters has not checked the stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
CHINA SECURITIES JOURNAL
-- A study of 1,731 Chinese fund firms showed they made a collective profit of 168.7 billion yuan ($27.16 billion) in 2013, up 36.5 percent from a year earlier, according to data from TX Investment Consulting. Mixed funds showed strong growth, while debt-based and capital guarantee funds slipped.
SHANGHAI SECURITIES NEWS
-- The Chinese government's real estate policy has shifted focus from curbing the rapid rise in house prices to helping the poor buy homes, according to Xu Shanda, former deputy head of China's tax bureau.
-- Baoshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd has launched a stock incentive plan that will award 47.5 million shares to its managers and some employees, part of a wider reform of China's state-owned enterprises.
SECURITIES TIMES
-- The biggest non-life insurance joint venture in China - between French insurer Axa SA and China's Tian Ping Auto Insurance - officially opened for business on Monday.
CHINA DAILY
-- China's government is seeking measures to tackle a rising divorce rate. The country sees nearly 10,000 marriages break up every day, according to the social affairs unit at the Ministry of Civil Affairs. More than 3 million people sought divorce in 2012, a 133 percent increased against 2003.
SHANGHAI DAILY
-- China's big five banks posted a combined net profit of 862.8 billion yuan ($138.89 billion) in 2013, an average yearly growth rate of 11 percent, analysts told the paper. Profit growth at the five banks is likely to slow to under 10 percent this year, they added.
For Hong Kong and South China newspapers see.....
($1 = 6.2122 Chinese Yuan) (Reporting by Samuel Shen and Adam Jourdan in Shanghai; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)