Hong Kong flag carrier Cathay Pacific said Wednesday its first-half profit dropped 82 percent from a year earlier, with the company hit by an economic slowdown in China and increasing competition from its peers.

Net profit for the first six months of the year plummeted to HK$353 million ($45.52 million).

It compared to the HK$1.97 billion recorded in the same period last year and largely fell short of the HK$1.07 billion median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of four analysts.

Revenue for the period also fell 9.3 percent to HK$45.68 billion.

"The operating environment in the first half of 2016 was affected by economic fragility and intense competition," the carrier's chairman John Slosar said in a statement issued to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

"The slowdown in the Mainland China economy... caused restrictions to be placed on corporate travel. This adversely affected premium class demand, particularly on long-haul routes," the statement said.

Cathay Pacific warned last month that a reduction in "load factor" -- a measure of how full its aircraft are -- was putting pressure on the business.

The company has been competing against other major airlines expanding into Asia as well as low-budget carriers.

Fuel savings from lower oil prices were partly offset by hedging losses, the company statement said on Wednesday. Its hedging loss widened to HK$4.49 billion from HK$3.74 billion year on year.

Passenger yield -- the amount of cash earned from carrying passengers each kilometre and a key measure of a carrier's profitability -- fell 10 percent to 54.3 Hong Kong cents.

Cargo demand was "generally weak" throughout the period, the company said.

China to prosecute 26 over $7.6 bn 'Ponzi scheme'
Shanghai (AFP) Aug 17, 2016 - China will prosecute 26 people linked to a peer-to-peer lender for fraud and illegal fundraising, state media said late Tuesday, in a case labelled a Ponzi scheme for allegedly bilking investors of $7.6 billion.

Police have handed over the case involving P2P lender Ezubao to prosecutors, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Authorities charged 11 people -- including top executives of Ezubao's parent company Yucheng, chairman Ding Ning and president Zhang Min -- of fraud while another 15 are accused of illegally obtaining investors' savings, the Beijing People's Procuratorate said in statement on its website.

In a televised confession shown in February after suspects were arrested, Zhang said Ezubao was "a typical Ponzi scheme". Rights groups condemn such practices as prejudicing the right to a fair trial.

Police previously told state media that Ezubao concocted fake projects to attract investment and pocketed funds instead of passing them to borrowers to generate returns.

The case, said to be China's biggest-ever Ponzi scheme, has sparked protests from investors and is one among several dubious investment projects which have come to light this year.

In May, police arrested 35 executives and employees of Shanghai-based Zhongjin Asset Management after it failed to make payments of 5.2 billion yuan ($787 million) to its 25,000 investors.

Police arrested 19 people connected to a troubled metal exchange Fanya, which managed around 40 billion yuan in assets, in June amid suspicion of fraud.