The profits of China’s centrally administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) tripled in the first quarter, hitting an all-time high for the period as the country’s economy continued to recover from the fallout of the pandemic, the top SOE regulator announced at a press conference on Friday, reported Caixin.
In the first quarter of this year, central SOEs earned RMB 415.3 billion ($63.7 billion) in net profits, more than 200% the amount reported for the same period last year and up 31.1% from the same period in 2019, said Peng Huaguang, secretary general of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC).
Peng said the central SOEs extended a growth trend that started in the second half of last year. Enterprises in certain industries, including petroleum, metallurgy, machinery, construction and military, recorded first-quarter net profits that more than doubled from the same period a year earlier, reported Caixin.
Central SOEs generated RMB 7.8 trillion in revenue in the first quarter, up 30.1% year-on-year. At the end of March, the average debt-to-asset ratio of central SOEs stood at 64.7%, down by 0.8 percentage points from a year earlier, according to official data.