China's Ministry of Finance announced Tuesday the country's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) registered record economic performance in 2004 with their profits raising by 54.5 percent year-on-year to 736.88 billion yuan (US$90 billion).  
  
According to final accounts of the ministry, the SOEs, which total 136,000 in number, recorded 1.21 trillion yuan (US$148 billion) in their major business revenues, up 20.5 percent over the previous year.
  
The SOEs turned over 1 trillion yuan (US$121.9 billion) in taxes to taxation departments, an increase of 28.2 percent over the previous year, which makes up 38.3 percent of China's total fiscal revenues, the ministry said in a press release.
  
Profits generated by corporate groups under direct control of the central government reached 467.31 billion yuan (US$57 billion), or 63.4 percent of those made by SOEs, according to the ministry.
  
The corporate groups also paid 459.42 billion yuan (US$56 billion) in taxation, accounting for 17.4 percent of the country's total fiscal revenues.
  
The profitability of the country's SOEs has further improved, the ministry acknowledged.
  
The ministry owed the improvement of SOEs' economic performance to the rising demand arising from China's fast economic growth, which led to the expansion of corporate production and sales volumes, economic restructuring and the reform of SOEs, and increased efficiency of those firms through improved corporate management and technological progress.

(Xinhua News Agency June 15, 2005)