(Yicai Global) July 27 --Profits at China’s largeindustrial companies expanded at the quickest rate in more than a year last month, extending their financial recovery into a second monthafter the onslaught of Covid-19.

Total earnings at industrial firms with annual revenue of more than CNY20 million (USD2.9 million) jumped11.5 percent from a year earlier to CNY666.5 billion (USD95 billion) in June, according to data the National Bureau of Statistics released today.

That was the fastest increase since March 2019 and compared with 6 percent in May, the first month of growth since November.

For the first half of this year, profits slumped 12.8 percent to a combined CNY2.5 trillion (USD357 billion), the NBS data showed. That was an improvement on the 19.3 percent slump recorded for the first five months.

Editor: Ben Armour