BEIJING, July 27 (Xinhua) -- China's major industrial companies saw a steady increase in profits in the first half of this year amid a stable recovery in market demand and improving business performance, official data showed on Tuesday.

Industrial firms with an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about 3.09 million U.S. dollars) raked in combined profits of 4.22 trillion yuan during the period, up 66.9 percent year on year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows.

Compared with the 2019 level, profits of major industrial firms rose by 45.5 percent in the first half. The expansion put the average first-half growth for 2020 and 2021 at 20.6 percent, NBS data shows.

In the second quarter, industrial profits rose 36 percent year on year, up 42.5 percent from the 2019 level.

In June alone, major industrial firms made 791.8 billion yuan in total profits, up 20 percent year on year.

While the business performance of industrial firms improved, uneven recovery remained, with profits of private and small-sized companies growing relatively slower, said senior NBS statistician Zhu Hong.

State-controlled industrial firms saw their profits more than double in the first half, while private firms saw profits jump 47.1 percent year on year, the data shows.

Of all 41 industrial sectors, 40 saw year-on-year profit growth and one saw profits unchanged from the 2020 level.

Upstream mining and raw material manufacturing companies saw their profits more than double, contributing to more than half of overall industrial profit growth.

The high-tech manufacturing sector saw faster-than-average growth, while producers of consumer goods saw accelerated profit recovery in the first half, Zhu noted.

Boosted by an expansion in COVID-19 vaccine and testing reagent production capacity, the profits of the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector jumped 88.8 percent year on year, accelerating from the pace in the first quarter.

The rebound in the industrial sector was in line with China's overall economic recovery. In the first half, China's GDP expanded 12.7 percent year on year, with major indicators pointing to resilience in growth.

Noting that industrial firms still face challenges, such as high costs rising from commodity price hikes and weak links in industrial chains, Zhu said the country should make sustained efforts to keep market prices stable and tackle the difficulties of companies.