China's industrial enterprises earned 203.4 billion yuan (25.4 billion US dollars) in profits in the first two months of 2006, up 21.8 percent over the previous year, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a monthly report on Wednesday.

The NBS said the comprehensive industrial economic efficiency indicators reached 165.29, an increase of 7.6 points over the same period in 2005.

Among the industrial enterprises, which include all state-owned firms and the non-state-owned enterprises with an annual sales income of more than 5 million yuan (about 625,000 US dollars), the state-owned and state-held ones achieved 99.3 billion yuan (12.4 billion dollars) in profits, a rise of 13.5 percent.

The profits of the collectively-owned enterprises grew 31.8 percent to 5.5 billion yuan (688 million dollars), while that of the privately-owned ones increased 44.6 percent to 25.4 billion yuan (3.18 billion dollars).

The share-holding enterprises under state control and the overseas-funded firms scored 110.7 billion yuan (13.8 billion dollars) and 57.6 billion yuan (7.2 billion dollars) in profits, up 24.7 percent and 24.3 percent respectively.

Of China's 39 major industries, the profits of oil and gas exploration,electric power and telecommunications sectors grew by 79.1 percent, 38.5 percent and 33.5 percent respectively in the first two months.

The profits of non-ferrous metal ore mining and transportation equipment manufacturing rose by 1.08 times and 1.45 times respectively in the same period.

The profits from steel, chemistry and coal sectors fell by 74.6 percent, 11.4 percent and 4.3 percent respectively in the first two months.

The NBS report also said industrial enterprises suffered losses totaling 54.7 billion yuan (6.8 billion dollars) in the January-February period, posing a 25.3 percent increase.

The losses of state-owned industrial enterprises and the share-holding enterprises under state control came to 26.2 billion yuan (3.3 billion dollars), an increase of 39.1 percent over the corresponding period of 2005, according to statistics.

Meanwhile, the industrial enterprises gained 201.5 billion yuan (25.2 billion dollars) in taxes, a year-on-year increase of 17.7 percent, and the taxes of state-owned industrial firms and the share-holding enterprises under the State control reached 113.2 billion yuan (14.2 billion dollars), up 12.9 percent over the previous year, said the NBS.

Statistics showed the sales income of the industrial enterprises amounted to 3.805 trillion yuan (476.625 billion dollars) in the period, up 24.8 percent, while that of the state-owned industrial enterprises and the share-holding enterprises under the State control achieved 1.3644 trillion yuan (170.55 billion dollars), up 18 percent.

The industrial enterprises in the petroleum refining and coking sectors reported economic losses of 4.6 billion yuan (575 million dollars) in the first two months of this year.