China's centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported combined profits of 722 billion yuan (106 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of the year, up 15.8 percent year on year, official data showed Tuesday.
In June alone, these SOEs' combined profits hit a record high of 160 billion yuan, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).
The 102 SOEs held a total of 12.5 trillion yuan in revenues for the first half of the year, an increase of 16.8 percent from one year earlier.
The strong performance was due to improvement in the Chinese economy, progress in supply-side structural reform, and the government's efforts to streamline the central SOEs and enhance their competitiveness, Shen Ying, chief accountant of the SASAC, told a press conference.
Shen said the SOEs have endeavored to reduce overcapacity, with a combined 6 million tonnes of steel production capacity cut, fulfilling their full-year target, and 6.6 million tonnes of production capacity being pruned in the coal mining sector.
