China Resources Enterprise says H1 profit falls 9 pct

HONG KONG, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Retail-focused conglomerate China Resources Enterprise Ltd (HKSE: 0291.HK - news) (CRE) on Thursday posted an 8.7 percent drop in first-half net profit due to a weak mainland retail market and as it started to consolidate losses from its joint venture with Britain's Tesco Plc (Xetra: 852647 - news) .

Government-backed CRE, which has interests ranging from making beverages to operating supermarket chains, said net profit fell to HK$929 million ($119.87 million) for the January-to-June period, from HK$1.02 billion in the same period a year earlier.

CRE said the consolidation of the loss from Tesco stores in China were likely to affect its performance in its overall retail business.

(1 US dollar = 7.7503 Hong Kong dollar) (Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Stephen Coates)