Despite challenges from insufficient market demand and extreme weather conditions – including high temperatures and severe flooding – China's industrial firms have continued to post profit expansion in the first eight months of the year, with high-tech manufacturing leading the growth , official data showed on Friday.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported that profits of major industrial companies rose by 0.5 percent year on year to 4.65 trillion yuan ($652.95 billion) in the January-August period. 

Gross profits, calculated after deducting business costs from operating revenue, grew by 1.2 percent compared to the same period of last year.

Among the 41 major industrial sectors tracked by the NBS, 29 reported year-on-year profit growth, covering over 70 percent of the industries.

High-tech manufacturing has emerged as a significant driver of the growth, with profits in this sector surging 10.9 percent compared to the same period of last year, far outpacing the average for larger industrial enterprises by 10.4 percentage points and contributing 1.8 percentage points to the overall industrial profit growth.

The sustained rapid growth in the high-tech manufacturing underscores its robust role in supporting the ongoing high-quality development of China's industrial economy, despite the high baseline set in August and the broader challenges faced by the economy, said Yu Weining, a statistician from the Department of Industry at the NBS.