China's central state-owned enterprises (SOEs) realized a 31.2 percent profit growth year-on-year in the first quarter, based on steady growth of output and more effective control of costs.

A release by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) yesterday said the more than 170 central SOEs - those directly supervised by the central government - altogether realized profits of 140.4 billion yuan (US$17 billion) in the first three months.

That included 53.4 billion yuan (US$6.4 billion) of profits realized in March, the highest recorded for a single month.

Their sales revenue also expanded by 22.7 per cent in the first quarter from a year ago to more than 1.4 trillion yuan (US$169 billion).

It is a good sign that the central SOEs have their profit growth exceeding the revenue growth, which means they are more cost effective, a spokesman of SASAC said yesterday.

The central SOEs are mostly flagships of industries, especially for the pillar industries of coal, oil, power and iron and steel, which are also facing opportunities and challenges from increasing domestic demand for raw material and energy as the Chinese economy soars.

In the first quarter, the central coal enterprises produced 56.4 million tons of coal, up 25.9 per cent year-on-year.

Central petrol and chemical enterprises also saw their output of crude oil increase by 4.6 per cent to 50 million tons during the period.

(China Daily April 19, 2005)