The composite index measuring industrial enterprises' economic efficiency reached 124.3 points during the period, an increase of 4.3 points compared with the same period last year.

During the January-July period, industrial enterprises made profits of 275.7 billion yuan (US$33.2 billion), an increase of 8.1 percent from the same period last year.

The profit growth was also 3 percentage points higher than the first half of the year, according to the bureau.

The growth was mainly boosted by robust earnings from producers of transport equipment and coal, said Xu Jianyi, deputy director of the bureau's industrial and transportation statistics department.

Figures from the bureau suggest that profits by makers of transport equipment rose 7.2 billion yuan (US$867 million) during the January-July period compared with a year before, while those by coal producers increased 3.3 billion yuan (US$397 million).

The increased profits by the two sectors accounted for 51.1 per cent of the total increased earnings in the industrial sector, the bureau said.

But profits by State-owned industrial firms and firms in which the State holds a majority stake dropped a year-on-year 6.7 per cent to 129.3 billion yuan (US$15.6 billion), the bureau said.

"The drop was 4.5 percentage points less than that during the first half of the year," it said.

According to the bureau, the net loss suffered by money-losing companies was 74.5 billion yuan (US$8.9 billion) during the January-July period, a year-on-year increase of 4 per cent, which was also better than an increase of 9.8 per cent during the first half-year.

During the first seven months, industrial enterprises handed in 331.9 billion yuan (US$40 billion) of taxes to the State, a year-on-year increase of 9.5 per cent.

Niu Li, a senior economist with the State Information Center, said: "The improved performance of industrial enterprises was mainly because of the better-than-expected industrial sales."

The sales income of industrial enterprises grew a year-on-year 13.6 per cent to 5,734.2 billion yuan (US$690.9 billion) because of increasing external demand and the central government's efforts to stimulate domestic investment and consumption.

(China Daily August 27, 2002)