China Railway Corp made a loss of 6.88 billion yuan ($1.12 billion) in the first quarter, as freight growth slowed, according to its quarterly report.

The new losses have increased total liability to 2.84 trillion yuan, which accounts for 62.31 percent of total assets.

Zhao Jian, a professor with Beijing Jiaotong University, said this year's commodity freight demand was sluggish and in some regions demand even contracted.

The loss followed a profit surge in 2012 reported by CRC. In 2012, after-tax profit soared 532 percent over a year earlier to 196 million yuan.