BEIJING — China’s major industrial firms posted double-digit profit growth in the first four months of this year on the back of a firming economy, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on May 27.

Industrial companies with annual revenue of more than 20 million yuan (about $2.92 million) reported profits of 2.28 trillion yuan in the first four months, a 24.4-percent increase from one year earlier, the NBS said in a statement.

The profit growth has slowed from a 28.3-percent increase in the first three months, but is still the highest January-April level since 2012.

In April alone, profits of major industrial firms rose 14 percent year on year to 572.78 billion yuan, the NBS said.

NBS statistician He Ping said the slowdown was “reasonable” after the breakneck growth in previous months, noting that there is still a good momentum in industrial profit growth.

The industrial sector, which accounts for about a third of China’s GDP, started to pick up last year after profit declines in 2015, helped by government efforts to cut overcapacity and a recovery of the property sector.

Among the 41 industries surveyed, 38 posted year-on-year profit growth during the first four months, according to the NBS.

In the four months, major industrial firms saw profitability of their primary business edge up 0.53 percentage points to 6.04 percent. By the end of April, their debt-asset ratio dropped 0.6 percentage points to 56.2 percent.

China’s value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, expanded 6.5 percent year on year in April. For the first four months, industrial production expanded 6.7 percent year on year, according to previous NBS data.