Photo taken on Jan. 13, 2021 shows the headquarters building of China Baowu Steel Group Corporation Limited in Shanghai, east China. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

The combined profits of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) rose 7 percent year on year to nearly 1.02 trillion yuan (about 155.5 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of the year, official data showed on Tuesday.

The SOEs raked in 18.6 trillion yuan in operating revenue in the first three months, 12.9 percent higher than in the same period last year, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.

The total profits of China's centrally administrated SOEs rose 11.7 percent from a year earlier to 778.46 billion yuan, and their operating revenue topped 10.75 trillion yuan, up 14.1 percent year on year.

In the January-March period, the combined profits of China's local SOEs dropped 5.9 percent year on year, the data showed.

By the end of the first quarter, the debt-to-asset ratio of the country's SOEs came in at 64.3 percent, 0.1 percentage points higher than the previous year.