China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) had seen first year-on-year growth in business revenue this year after declining for nine months, according to the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

For the first ten months of the year, business revenue of China's SOEs stood at 17.9 trillion yuan (about US$2.62 trillion), up 0.5 percent from the same period a year ago, said the MOF in a report released on its website.

Profits of China's SOEs continued to drop, felling 10.6 percent to 1.06 trillion yuan in the first ten months. The decline rate was 7 percentage points lower than that for the first nine months, according to the report.

The figures for October alone was not given in the MOF report, but it said business revenue was 3.9 percent lower than the September level, while profits were up 9.6 percent month on month.

In a breakdown, China's central SOEs reported 1.5 percent year-on-year growth in business revenue in the first ten months to 11.2 trillion yuan.

Central SOEs covered 133 centrally-administered SOEs and 82 SOEs affiliated to central departments.

Business revenue of China's local SOEs dropped 1.2 percent to 6.63 trillion yuan in the first ten months, while their profits dipped 17.9 percent to 296.5 billion yuan in the same period.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2009)