China's central SOEs register rapid profit growth in 2019

.Net profits of China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) rose 10.8% year on year to 1.3 trillion yuan (about US$188.8 billion) in 2019, official data showed Wednesday.

The growth rate picked up steadily in the second half of last year, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said at a press conference.

"The momentum has been consolidated in pursuing progress while maintaining stability, achieving the target set for the whole year," SASAC spokesperson Peng Huagang said.

According to Peng, the total operating revenue of central SOEs reached 30.8 trillion yuan, up 5.6% from a year earlier, with 10 state firms seeing revenue growth of over 20% and 29 over 10%.

The steady growth, despite external complexities, came amid ongoing business environment improvement, stepped up shifts of growth drivers and strong policy support, said Peng.

More efforts have been made in SOE deleveraging to defuse financial risks. In 2019, the debt-to-asset ratio of China's central SOEs dropped for the third consecutive year to 65.1%, 0.6 percentage points down from the beginning of 2019.

At present, the SASAC is working on a three-year action plan of SOE reform in a bid to improve the comprehensive efficiency of the reform and the governance system for SOEs.

In 2020, the strategic restructuring of central SOEs will also be further promoted, Peng said.