BEIJING — China's State-owned enterprises (SOEs) posted steady profit growth in the first half of the year, official data showed Tuesday.

Total profits of about 1.41 trillion yuan ($208.9 billion) were in the January-June period, up 24.3 percent year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Finance.

Centrally-administered SOEs made about 935.2 billion yuan in profit, up 18.5 percent year-on-year, while locally-administered SOEs profited over 472 billion yuan, up 37.5 percent compared with H1 2016.

Chinese SOEs raked in about 24.6 trillion yuan in revenue in H1, up 16.6 percent year-on-year.

Coal, petroleum and petrochemical and transport sectors posted strong year-on-year growth while sectors such as electricity suffered profit falls.