BEIJING, Dec. 27 -- Profits of China's major industrial firms declined 3.6 percent year on year in the first 11 months of the year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed Tuesday.

Industrial firms with annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.88 million U.S. dollars) saw their combined profits reach about 7.72 trillion yuan in the period, the NBS said.

"In November, industrial production slowed down, and the pressure on business operations increased due to factors such as the resurgence of the epidemic and the weak demand, but the profit structure continued to improve," said senior NBS statistician Zhu Hong.

If excluding sharp declines in a few enterprises, such as steel and oil processing enterprises and two leading vaccine companies that earned remarkably high profits a year ago, the overall profit growth rate will be 6.6 percent in the January-November period this year, Zhu said.

A total of 20 out of 41 major industries saw growth in profits in the period, up from 19 in the first 10 months.

The oil and gas exploitation sector saw profits jump 1.13 times from the same period last year, while the electric and heat power production and supply and the coal mining and washing sectors reported profit increases of 47.2 percent and 47 percent, respectively.

In the first 11 months, the combined revenues of industrial firms sustained growth, rising 6.7 percent year on year to 123.96 trillion yuan, the NBS data showed.