Chinese companies with sales in excess of 5 million yuan reported 903 billion yuan of profits in the first five months of this year, up 42.1 percent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday.

 

State-owned enterprises and state-controlled companies generated 419.3 billion yuan in profits, up 42.3 percent, according to the bureau.

 

Collectively-owned industrial firms with annual sales over 5 million yuan reported 22.3 billion yuan in profits during the five months, up 24 percent, while joint-stock firms in the same category generated 484.5 billion yuan in profits, up 39.5 percent.

 

Foreign-funded firms and those funded by investors from China's Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan generated 241.9 billion yuan in profits, up 38.6 percent, and private firms reported 137.9 billion yuan in profits, up 48.6 percent.

 

The iron and steel sector was one of the standouts with its profits up 120 percent year on year for the five months, followed by the building materials sector, which reported a 70.1 percent jump in profits, said the bureau.

 

The bureau said profits grew by 220 percent in the chemical fiber sector and by 69.4 percent in the chemical industry.

 

The telecom equipment manufacturing sector reported a 4.6 percent growth in profits, and the oil processing and coking sector earned 34.3 billion yuan in profits, compared with 19.9 billion yuan in losses for the same period of last year.

 

The bureau said the oil and natural gas sector in China suffered an 18.3 percent drop in profits.

 

Between January and May, industrial firms paid 627.1 billion yuan in taxes, up 24.9 percent, on total revenues of 14.2 trillion yuan, up 27.4 percent.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 28, 2007)