Profits from Chinese industry jumped 13.6 percent on a year-on-year basis to 380.1 billion yuan (US$45.9 billion) in the first nine months of this year, official figures showed.
Figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday showed that the growth rate was 3.6 percentage points up from that for the first eight months of the year.
NBS said 36 of the 40 major industrial sectors had either improved profits or reduced losses from January to September. The state-owned enterprises shook off an eight-month-old spell of shrinking profits and registered a 0.9-percent growth in profits in the period.
Sales by industrial enterprises continued to surge, up 14.9 percent year-on-year to 7,627.2 billion yuan (US$921.2 billion) from January to September. The growth rate was 0.8 percentage points higher than in the January-August period.
The five industrial sectors of automobiles, chemicals, coal mining, machinery and electronic equipment reaped 28 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) in profits, accounting for 61.8 percent of China's total industrial profits.
NBS figures showed losses by non-profitable enterprises dropped2.1 percent year-on-year to 89.7 billion yuan (US$10.8 billion) for January-September, ending a trend of deepening losses over the previous eight consecutive months.
(Xinhua News Agency October 25, 2002)