National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Thursday confirmed that parts of the media had reported incorrectly on the profits and losses of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in 2005.

A senior official with the Industrial and Communications Statistical Department of the NBS said that some Chinese-language media, citing NBS statistics, reported recently that economic losses of China's SOEs in 2005 rose 56.7 percent from the previous year to 102.6 billion yuan, the second increase since 1998.

"These reports seriously betray the facts," the official said. In fact, China's state-owned and state-holding industrial companies realized net profits of 644.7 billion yuan, 17.4 percent up on the previous year, he continued.

The official said the 644.7 billion yuan figure was calculated by subtracting 102.6 billion yuan in losses of the unprofitable SOEs from the 747.3 billion yuan in profits of the profitable state-owned and state-holding industrial enterprises.

But some media thought the 102.6 billion yuan in losses of the losing SOEs related to all state-owned and state-holding industrial enterprises.

According to the official, the NBS arrived at the figure by counting about 29,000 of the state-owned and state-holding industrial enterprises in the country, not all China's SOEs.

The figure released by the Ministry of Finance was that the profits of China's SOEs in 2005 surged 25 percent to 904.7 billion yuan, counting more than 120,000 SOEs which included not only the industrial SOEs, but also the SOEs in the sectors of construction, retail and wholesales, and other businesses, the official said.

Source: Xinhua