Chinese industrial enterprises saw their economic efficiency surge to the highest level over the past few years as total profits topped 200 billion yuan (US$24 billion) during the first seven months of this year.

According to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Tuesday, the complex index of industrial efficiency jumped 16.6 points year-on-year to 111.3 points for the first seven months of the year. The index was 1.9 points higher than it was for the January to June period.

NBS said that net profits of all industrial enterprises rose to 202.24 billion yuan (US$24.37 billion) during January to July, 2.1 times of that in the same period last year.

Sales of industrial enterprises surged by 21.3 percent year-on- year to 4.4 trillion yuan (US$530 billion) during the period, while stockpiles grew 2.4 percent.

Stockpiles at state-owned enterprises dropped by 1.5 percent over the same period of last year.

By the end of July, the total losses of money-losing industrial enterprises was 9.9 percent lower than one year ago, an improvement of 1.4 percentage points over the mid-year rate.

Over the first seven months of the year, state-owned enterprises registered net profits of 113.21 billion yuan (US$13.64 billion) while state-owned enterprises that are losing money cut losses by 8.8 percent to 52.01 billion yuan (US$6.27 billion).

During this period, Chinese industrial enterprises paid 272.21 billion yuan (US$32.80 billion) worth of taxes, 17.3 percent more than in the same period last year.

(Xinhua)