BEIJING, Jan. 17 -- The revenues of China's centrally administrated state-owned enterprises (SOEs) increased 8.3 percent year on year to 39.4 trillion yuan (5.86 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2022, the country's SOE regulator said Tuesday.

Profits gained 5.5 percent year on year to reach 2.55 trillion yuan and net profits climbed 5 percent to 1.9 trillion yuan, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

China's SOEs balanced COVID-19 response with effective production and also introduced a series of reforms in 2022, said Peng Huagang, secretary general and spokesperson of the commission.

In 2022, the productivity of central SOEs increased steadily, with the annualized overall labor productivity reaching about 763,000 yuan per person -- up 8.7 percent year on year. Investment in research and development continued to grow with a year-on-year rise of 9.8 percent.

The average debt-to-asset ratio of central SOEs stood at 64.8 percent at the end of last year.

Central SOEs paid 2.8 trillion yuan in taxes and fees in 2022, up 19.3 percent year on year.

The commission introduced 27 measures to ease the burdens of smaller businesses last year. Central SOEs waived 17.44 billion yuan in rent for about 214,000 tenants in 2022.