BEIJING — China's major industrial companies saw their profits maintain steady expansion in the first five months of the year amid recovering market demand and improving business performance, official data showed on June 27.

Industrial firms with an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about $3.09 million) raked in around 3.42 trillion yuan in total profits during the period, soaring 83.4 percent year-on-year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

Compared with the 2019 level, profits of major industrial firms rose by 48 percent in the first five months. The expansion put the average January-May growth of 2020 and 2021 at 21.7 percent, NBS data showed.

In May alone, profits of major industrial firms climbed 36.4 percent from a year earlier to 829.92 billion yuan.