Profits at China’s major industrial firms rose 4.8 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2016, reversing the downward trend of last year, official data showed on March 27.

Profits at industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) totaled 780.7 billion yuan in the Jan-Feb period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

The profits registered a 4.7 percent year-on-year fall in December and a 2.3 percent annual decrease in 2015.