The profit from China's agricultural machinery industry in 2005 is estimated to jump over 50 percent year on year, the China International Agricultural Machinery Industry Association announced on Wednesday.

Thanks to the central government's subsidies worth 300 million yuan (37.5 million U.S. dollars) to the agricultural machinery industry in 2005, the output in this industry grew at the fastest rate among all machinery industries in the country.

Figures from the Association show that in the first ten months of 2005, the agricultural machinery sales volume jumped 34.1 percent year on year, with industrial output rising 29 percent to 87.52 billion yuan, profit up 54.8 percent to 2.92 billion yuan.

Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in the first ten months of 2005, a total of 138,000 large and medium-sized tractors were sold, up 50.8 percent year on year, and 162,000 harvesting machines were sold, up 19 percent.

Last year local governments gave subsidies worth 800 million yuan to the agricultural machinery industry, and Chinese farmers paid more than 5 billion yuan for buying agricultural machinery, according to sources with the Ministry of Agriculture.

Source: Xinhua