Net profits of China's SOEs up 4.4 pct

Net profits of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) hit 1.9 trillion yuan in 2013, up 4.4 percent year on year, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday.

The enterprises' total assets stood at 104.1 trillion yuan (17.07 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2013, up 16.3 percent year on year. Total debt was 67.1 trillion yuan, up 16.7 percent year on year.

The SOEs provided 36.98 million jobs, up 0.7 percent year on year, including 17.62 million from SOEs owned by the central government and 19.36 million from those controlled by local governments.

They paid about 3.8 trillion yuan in tax in 2013, up 5.4 percent year on year, including 2.8 trillion yuan from SOEs owned by the central government, up 6 percent year on year, and the rest from SOEs run by local governments, up 3.7 percent year on year.

China had about 155,000 SOEs at the end of 2013, up 5.8 percent from the previous year, including about 52,000 owned by the central government and the rest controlled by local governments.