Profits earned by China's industrial companies jumped 15.5% year over year to 729.32 billion ($111.71 billion) in November - the seventh consecutive month of gains after a 28.2% rise in October, according to the National Bureau of Statistics late Sunday.
The reduction in November compared with October was a result of a higher base a year earlier, senior statistician at the bureau Zhu Hong said.
"Profits at some traditional industries have shown improvement. With the approach of heating season, demand for thermal coal has risen and prices have increased, leading to an accelerated recovery in the coal sector," he said in a statement.
Profits in the coal industry rose 9.1% in November, the first increase this year.
"Industrial profits are expected to maintain double-digit growth over the next few months, driven by low base effects, domestic economic recovery, improvements in overseas demand and the rebound in commodity prices benefiting the upstream sector," China Everbright Bank analyst Zhou Maohua said according to a Reuters report.
For the January-to-November period profits rose 2.4% on year to 5.74 trillion yuan - after a 0.7% gain in the first 10 months of the year - as the economy recovered further from the COVID-19 crisis.
Profits at private-sector industrial companies grew 1.8% for the 11-month period while those at state-owned companies fell 4.9%, the bureau said.
Special equipment manufacturing posted the largest increase in profit with 23%, followed by communications with 15.7%, general manufacturing at 12.5% and chemical products at 10.5%. Petroleum and natural gas extraction companies saw their profits fall 70.8% and the coal mining industry fell 24.5%.
