Profits of China's major industrial firms maintained steady growth momentum in the first eight months of the year as industrial production continued to firm up and business operations kept improving, official data showed on Tuesday.

Industrial firms with annual business revenues of at least 20 million yuan (about 3.1 billion U.S. dollars) saw their combined profits surging 49.5 percent year on year in the Jan.-Aug. period to 5.6 trillion yuan, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

The volume jumped 42.9 percent compared with the 2019 level, putting the average Jan.-Aug. growth for 2020 and 2021 at 19.5 percent.

In August alone, major industrial companies raked in profits of 680.28 billion yuan, up 10.1 percent year on year, NBS data showed.