China's major industrial firms made a total profit of 3.51 trillion yuan ($484.1 billion) in the first half of the year, marking a year-on-year growth of 3.5 percent, according to official data released on Saturday.

The half-year growth data was 0.1 percentage point higher than that in the January to May period, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In June alone, profits of industrial enterprises with an annual main business revenue of at least 20 million yuan grew by 3.6 percent, a growth rate 2.9 percentage points higher than that in May.

Yu Weining, a statistician from the industrial department of the NBS, highlighted that the growth rate of industrial enterprise profits has picked up pace and has been recovering steadily.

Yu said the steady recovery in enterprise revenue has been jointly driven by stable and relatively fast growth in industrial production, and a significant narrowing of the decline in factory prices of industrial products since the second quarter.

The NBS noted that the equipment manufacturing industry strongly supported the growth of industrial profits.

In the January to June period, profits in the equipment manufacturing industry grew by 6.6 percent year on year, representing a major contributor to the growth that drove up the rise of overall industrial profits by 2.2 percentage points.

The acceleration of China's high-end, intelligent and green sectors is boosting the vitality of the equipment manufacturing industry, which in turn has supported the overall industrial sector, said Yu.

Profits in the consumer goods manufacturing industry continued to grow rapidly, driven by factors including recovering consumer demand and accelerated growth in industrial product exports, said Yu.

Yu said efforts should be made to actively expand domestic demand, develop new quality productive forces according to local conditions, shape new dynamics and advantages for development, and continuously promote the high-quality development of the country's industrial economy.