The National Bureau of Statistics said Monday that China's industrial enterprises earned 389.3 billion yuan in profit in the 2005's first four months, up 15.6 percent from the same period of last year.

The NBS, meanwhile, said the industrial enterprises, which include all state-owned enterprises and the non-state-owned enterprises with annual sales income more than 5 million yuan (602,410 US dollars), suffered losses of 71.8 billion yuan in the January-April period, representing a 46.1 percent year-on-year increase.

The state-owned industrial enterprises and the share-holding enterprises under the State control suffered losses totaling 35.1 billion yuan, an increase of 59.5 percent over the corresponding period of 2004, according to statistics. The NBS also said the industrial enterprises' sales income amounted to 6.794 trillion yuan in the period, up 26 percent from the January-April period a year earlier.

Of China's 39 major industries, the profit of the coal, oil, ferrous metals mining, nonferrous metals mining increased by 98 percent, 69.8 percent, 28.9 percent, 151.4 percent and 58.5 percent in the first four months.

The profit of the iron and steel industry increased by 19.2 percent, and that of the petroleum processing, coking and nuclear fuel processing dropped 66.4 percent.

Source: Xinhua