Profits in China's major industrial enterprises more than doubled in the first two months this year compared with a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The NBS attributed the strong growth to economic recovery, growing demand and a low comparison base during the corresponding period last year, when profits contracted 37.3 percent.

The combined profit of major industrial enterprises with annual business revenues exceeding 5 million yuan (US$732,064) was 486.74 billion yuan from January to February, up 119.7 percent, the NBS said in a statement on its website.

Driven by growing demand, the producer price index (PPI), a major measure of inflation at the wholesale level, rose 4.9 percent in the first two months, rebounding from a decline of 3.9 percent in the same period last year.

Profits of foreign-funded enterprises and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan invested enterprises increased 125.1 percent year on year to 140.64 billion yuan. Profits of private enterprises hit 118.62 billion yuan, rose 66.3 percent.

Profits of the country's power generators increased more than 17-fold in the first two months year on year, while profits of the chemical fiber sector grew over 87-fold, it said.

The combined profits of iron and steel plants totaled 17.67 billion yuan, rebounding from losses of 720 million yuan in the same period last year, said the statement.

Revenues from major businesses of these industrial enterprises rose 39.7 percent year on year to 8.56 trillion yuan in the first two months.

The NBS did not provide industrial profit figures for the whole of 2009, but said during the first 11 months last year, industrial profits rose 7.8 percent from the same period a year earlier.

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