State enterprises report solid profit growth

Chinese State-owned enterprises reported solid profit growth in the first two months of 2018 as the economy kicked off the year with better-than-expected performance, official data showed Wednesday.

Combined SOE profits rose 25.3 percent year-on-year to 367.3 billion yuan ($58.5 billion) for the January-February period, the Ministry of Finance said.

The growth was higher than the 23.5-percent increase seen in 2017.