Total profits of industrial companies with annual business revenue of more than 20 million yuan ($3.2 million) reached 2.86 trillion yuan, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.

The profits growth was markedly up from the less than 10-percent increase recorded in the first five months.

The faster-than-expected growth pace was due to strong growth in June, when industrial firms raked in 588 billion yuan in profits, up surprisingly by 17.9 percent from a year ago.

He Ping, statistician under the NBS, attributed the increase to rising sales and dropping costs of industrial firms in June and admitted that the low base in the same period last year also contributed to the high growth.

In the Jan-June period, profits of foreign-funded enterprises and companies with funds from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan rose the most by 15.3 percent year on year to 691.76 billion yuan.

State-owned and state-holding industrial enterprises amounted to 761.35 billion yuan in profits, up 5.6 percent from a year ago; profits of private firms climbed 13.5 percent year on year to 910.49 billion yuan; joint-stock enterprises took in total profits of 1.69 trillion yuan, up 10.8 percent year on year.

By sector, industrial enterprises in mining industry reached profits of 340.05 billion yuan in the first half, down 14.6 percent year on year. Companies in manufacturing sector saw 15.6-percent year-on-year growth to hit 2.3 trillion yuan in the period.

Of the total 41 industrial sectors, profits of 35 sectors rose, one remained flat and five dropped in the first half from the same period last year.