BEIJING — China's centrally administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) saw their net profit up 2.1 percent in 2020 despite the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, according to the country's top state assets regulator.

The net profit of the central SOEs totaled 1.4 trillion yuan (about $217 billion), said Hao Peng, chief of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

The annual growth, reversing the 58.8-percent slump reported in the first quarter of last year, was indeed hard-won, said Hao.

By the end of last year, the debt-to-asset ratio of the central SOEs had dropped to 64.5 percent, reaching the target set by the State Council of reducing the ratio by 2 percentage points in three years, he added.

In the coming five years, the high-quality development of the central SOEs will be further enhanced, with progress seen in their business scale and profitability, according to Hao.