国内英语新闻:China's centrally-administered SOEs' profit leaps in1st 4 months

BEIJING, May 19 (Xinhua) -- China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) raked in a combined profit of 325.99 billion yuan (47.7 billion U.S. dollars) in the first four months of the year, the industry authorities announced here Wednesday.

The profit figure in the January-April period represents 81.7 percent growth year on year, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said in a statement on its website.

Centrally controlled SOE's combined operating revenue hit 4.89 trillion yuan in the period, up 50.4 percent year on year, the statement said.

While the statement did not specify the reasons for the profit and revenue increases, experts from the SASAC research center attributed the surge to last year's low comparison basis when Chinese firms were hit hard by the global economic downturn.

There are currently 126 centrally-administered SOEs under the SASAC.