CRRC employees operate an assembly line of the company in Qingdao, Shandong province. (Photo by Zhang Jingang/For China Daily)

BEIJING - Profits of China's major industrial firms increased 16.1 percent year-on-year in the first two months this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.

The reading was 5.3 percentage points faster than the growth rate registered in December 2017, the NBS said in a statement.