Profits of China's major industrial firms rebounded 5.4 percent year on year in November, the fastest pace in eight months, official data showed Friday.

The growth reversed the 9.9-percent decline in October. It was mainly due to the quickened growth in production and sales, coupled with the slower contraction of the factory-gate industrial prices, according to Zhu Hong, a senior statistician from the National Bureau of Statistics.

For the January to November period, the profits of major industrial firms dropped 2.1 percent to 5.61 trillion yuan (802.8 billion U.S. dollars), narrowing 0.8 percentage points from that in the first 10 months.

Profits of state-owned industrial enterprises fell 11.2 percent to 1.6 trillion yuan, while those of private enterprises rose 6.5 percent to 1.59 trillion yuan in the first 11 months.

During the period, profits in the electricity, heat, gas, water production and supply industries surged 17.7 percent to 464.3 billion yuan, and those of the mining industry increased 1 percent to 517.4 billion yuan. However, manufacturing industry profits dropped 4.1 percent to 4.63 trillion yuan.

In November alone, state-holding enterprises reported profit growth of 0.6 percent year on year, reversing the downward trajectory since the second half of the year. Meanwhile, private and small businesses reported fast profit growth of 14.7 percent and 8.6 percent year on year, respectively.

Among industries, the consumer goods manufacturing industry notched an 8.2-percent profit growth in November. Chemicals, petroleum processing and steel industries also saw their profits rebound due to improving market demand and rising prices, according to Zhu.

However, Zhu said despite the improvement in industrial profits, uncertainties remain because of multiple factors, including downward pressure on the economy, market demand as well as industrial price.