BEIJING — China's centrally administered State-owned enterprises (SOEs) invested more in research and development (R&D) to boost innovation-driven growth in the first half of 2022, official data showed on July 22.

Central SOEs' total expenditure on R&D amounted to around 378.62 billion yuan (about $56.1 billion) in the first six months, up 19.7 percent over the same period of last year, said the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) of the State Council.

The R&D input of central SOEs has maintained double-digit growth during the first six months, and the R&D investment intensity of those companies increased by 0.12 percentage points year-on-year, according to the SASAC.

SASAC data also showed that the combined revenue of China's central SOEs stood at 19.2 trillion yuan in the January-June period, up 12 percent year-on-year. Their net profits came in at 1.09 trillion yuan, up 6.1 percent from a year earlier.