China's Ministry of Finance has reported a startling 95.5 percent jump on Friday in the profits of state-owned real estate sector in the first nine months, as the country's housing prices kept soaring in major cities despite massive housing development.

The exact number of the industry profit is undisclosed, but the leading state-owned property company, Poly Real Estate Group Co., has reported a revenue of 39 billion yuan, and its net profits has risen 83.27 percent to 562 million yuan in the first nine months in its quarterly report.

This number is paled by the private property company, China Vanke Co., Ltd, who collected 1.8 billion yuan net profits in the first half.

The surging profits is caused by the continuing boom of the property market as National Bureau of Statistics reported a 8.2 percent increase in house prices of 70 large and medium-sized Chinese cities in August compared with last year.

Other state-owned real estate developers enjoying the property boom include China National Real Estate Development Group Corporation, China OCT, COFCO Property, etc.

Together with the real estate sector, state-owned construction companies also reported an over 90 percent increase. The profits of state-owned steel, automobiles and oil and chemical companies all grew by about 60 percent. The profit increase of state-owned coal enterprises are comparatively lower, only 24.4 percent over the same period last year.

China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported a 1.2 trillion yuan of profits, in the first three quarters, a 31.2 percent increase over the same period last year.

The number, surpassing last year's total, is mainly contributed by central SOEs who have made a profit of 839.15 billion yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency October 20, 2007)