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 Friday.

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.