The combined net profit of all the 1,624 listed companies in the Chinese mainland hit 203.8 billion yuan (about 30 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter, up 450.39 percent from the last quarter in 2008, reports from the country's two main exchanges showed Monday.

Among them, 1,186 companies reported gains, taking up 73.03 percent of the total. The number of companies suffering losses increased nearly 200 compared with the same period last year to 436.

The total net profit in the first three months dropped 25.81 percent year on year.

"The quarter-on-quarter profit surge showed production began to stabilize in the first three months after taking the major blow from the global financial crisis in the fourth quarter last year," said Qin Xiaobin, chief analyst with Beijing-based Galaxy Securities.

Measures issued by the government to support the key industries also helped with the profit rise, experts said.

However, companies are still troubled with over-capacity that led to the year-on-year decline and it is still too early to tell if the overall economy has bottomed out, according to Qin.

(Xinhua News Agency May 4, 2009)