BEIJING — China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) saw solid growth in net profits in 2021 despite lingering impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, showed official data on Jan 19.

Net profits of central SOEs went up 29.8 percent from a year ago to hit 1.8 trillion yuan (about $282.81 billion) last year. It showed an average two-year growth rate of 15.3 percent, said the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council.

The central SOEs raked in 36.3 trillion yuan in combined revenues in 2021, an increase of 19.5 percent year-on-year, SASAC spokesperson Peng Huagang said at the press conference.

The data also showed that central SOEs spent more on research and development (R&D) in 2021 to boost innovation-driven development, the SASAC said. Their R&D input expanded 16.1 percent year-on-year to 904.59 billion yuan.

The overall solvency of central SOEs remained stable. At the end of December, the average debt-to-asset ratio of China's central SOEs came in at 64.9 percent.