Beijing: Profits of China`s major industrial firms rose 4.8 percent year on year in the first two months of 2016, reversing the downward trend of last year, official data showed on Sunday.

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Profits at industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan (about $3.1 million) totalled at 780.7 billion yuan in the January-February period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.


The profits registered a 4.7 percent year-on-year fall in December and a 2.3 percent annual decrease in 2015, Xinhua news agency reported.

He Ping, an official with the NBS Department of Industry, attributed the latest profit growth to increased sales and a milder decline in factory product prices.

In the first two months, revenues from the firms` primary business climbed 1 percent year on year, improving from a 0.6 percent drop in December 2015 and a 0.8 percent increase for last year.

In the January-February period, China`s producer price index, which measures prices of goods at factory gate, slipped 5.1 percent year on year, narrowing from a drop of 5.9 percent in December and 5.2 percent for 2015.

Despite the recovery, part of the industrial profit growth was a result of the lower base in the same period of last year, He noted.

Industrial profits dipped 4.2 percent year on year in the Jan.-Feb. period of 2015, NBS data showed.

Compared with the same period of 2014, the Jan.-Feb. industrial profits of this year only inched up 0.4 percent, He added.