Employees work at the workshop of Harbin Electric Machinery Company Limited in Harbin, northeast China's Heilongjiang province, March 9, 2020. (WANG JIANWEI / XINHUA)

BEIJING - Profits of China's major industrial firms totaled 642.91 billion yuan (about US$97.77 billion) in October, increasing by 28.2 percent year-on-year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Friday.

The pace of growth quickened 18.1 percentage points from September.

In the first 10 months of the year, the profits of major industrial firms expanded 0.7 percent year-on-year to 5.01 trillion yuan, reversing the 2.4-percent decline in the January-September period.

In the first 10 months of the year, the profits of major industrial firms expanded 0.7 percent year-on-year to 5.01 trillion yuan, reversing the 2.4-percent decline in the January-September period

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Specifically, profits of state-controlled industrial firms dropped 7.5 percent from one year earlier to 1.29 trillion yuan, while industrial firms in the private sector saw their profits grow 1.1 percent year-on-year to 1.48 trillion yuan.

During the first 10 months, profits of the special equipment manufacturing industry saw notable growth of 22.9 percent, with growth also recorded in industries such as agricultural by-product processing, electronic manufacturing, textiles and auto manufacturing. The oil and natural gas extraction industry saw its profits slump 68.5 percent year-on-year.

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Profits in 25 of the 41 surveyed industrial sectors rose from the same period last year, while 16 sectors saw their profits fall, according to the NBS.

Major industrial companies refer to those with an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan.