China's industrial enterprises earned 988.3 billion yuan (121.9 billion US dollars) in profit in the first three quarters of 2005, up 20.1 percent over the same 2004 period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Wednesday.

The comprehensive economic efficiency indicators of industry reached 171.96, 10.42 points more than that of the same period of 2004.

The NBS, meanwhile, said the industrial enterprises, which include all state-owned firms and the non-state-owned enterprises with annual sales income more than five million yuan each, suffered losses of 153.2 billion yuan in the January-September period, representing a 57.6 percent year-on-year increase.

The state-owned industrial enterprises and the share-holding enterprises under the State control suffered losses totaling 80.4 billion yuan, an increase of 93.5 percent over the corresponding period of 2004, according to statistics.

The NBS also said the industrial enterprises' sales income amounted to 17.2 trillion yuan in the period, up 27.4 percent from the same period a year earlier.

Of China's 39 major industries, the profits of the coal, oil, ferrous and nonferrous metals, ore mining and nonmetals mineral mining rose by 77.8 percent, 75.1 percent, 44.9 percent, 124.6 percent, 78.5 percent respectively in the first nine months.

The NBS also noted that the profits of the transportation equipment manufacturing, building materials, telecommunications sectors fell by 31.7 percent, 14.2 percent and 6.1 percent respectively in the period.

The industrial enterprises in the petroleum refining and coking sectors reported an economic loss of 12.7 billion yuan in the January-September period.

Source: Xinhua