China's state-owned enterprises posted a 69.6-percent year-on-year surge in profits during the January-April period, the Ministry of Finance announced Wednesday.

In the first four months, combined profits of China's SOEs hit 579.52 billion yuan (84.85 billion U.S. dollars), the ministry's statistics showed.

Operating revenue of the SOEs reached about 9 trillion yuan (1.32 trillion U.S. dollars), up 46 percent from a year earlier.

The SOEs paid a total of 794.63 billion yuan (116.34 billion U.S. dollars) in taxes in the first four months, up 30.4 percent, with taxes payable amounting to 806.3 billion yuan (118 billion U.S. dollars).

The ministry did not provide reasons for the surge in profits and revenues, but analysts believed a low comparison base for the same period of last year helped fuel the strong growth.

Inventory levels and costs of however, both rose from January to April, leading to a slowdown in profit margin growth, according to the ministry.

The oil and petrochemical, coal, communications and automobile industries continued to see big increases in profits from January to April but the growth rate had slowed down.

Iron and steel, non-ferrous metals and power generation sectors posted steady growth in revenues from January to April.

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