Total profits of China's State-owned enterprises grew by 12.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, China's Ministry of Finance said on Thursday.

The ministry said in a notice on its website from January to March, profits earned by China's SOEs came in at 1.12 trillion yuan ($162.5 billion), while major indexes for SOE profits continued to climb.

Specifically, SOE revenues totaled 19.76 trillion yuan in the first quarter, up 6.4 percent from the same period last year, while the amount of their due tax payments went up 2.3 percent year-on-year.

zhangyue@chinadaily.com.cn