A high-speed train production line of China Railway Rolling Stock Corp in Qingdao, Shandong province.(Photo: Xinhua)

 
In the first half of the year, a total of 450 listed companies controlled by 84 China's centrally-administered enterprises achieved a total operating income of 13.55 trillion yuan ($1.9 trillion), with a total profit of 1.17 trillion yuan, providing strong support for stabilizing the national economy, a report said on Friday.

According to the report released by the China Association for Public Companies (CAPCO), 67.28 percent of the operating income and 81.39 percent of the total profit of the centrally-administered enterprises come from listed companies, affirming the vital role of listed companies.

The 450 enterprises include 361 domestic listed companies and 118 listed in Hong Kong.

"Centrally-administered enterprises have made full use of the advantages of China's capital market in terms of capital expansion, mergers and acquisitions as well as financing," Dong Dengxin, director of the Finance and Securities Institute of the Wuhan University of Science and Technology, told the Global Times on Saturday.

Dong noted that the performance of the listed companies controlled by central enterprises, which are the backbone of China's economy, has injected confidence in the capital market and has stabilized the overall macroeconomic picture.

In the first six months, China's centrally-administered enterprises achieved operating revenue of 19.2 trillion yuan, up 12 percent year-on-year. Total profit was 1.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.1 percent year-on-year.

The report from the CAPCO showed that from January to June, return on equity of these 450 firms reached 5.64 percent, better than the overall level of domestic and Hong Kong stock markets during the same period.

In the first half of the year, domestic listed firms of central enterprises paid a total of 560.6 billion yuan in taxes and fees, accounting for 54.93 percent of the domestic market.

The domestic listed companies continued to increase investment in R&D, with expenses exceeding 170.5 billion yuan, accounting for 27.46 percent of the domestic market. The 18 listed companies on China's Science and Technology Innovation Board contributed 12.92 percent of the new invention patents on the Board with 4.18 percent of the number of households, the report showed.

In addition, the 450 enterprises actively respond to the national targets of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, continuously increasing investment in green industry projects. In the first half of the year, they issued a total of 35 green bonds, raising 41.9 billion yuan.

"These companies should further use the capital market as a platform for resource integration, continuing to increase efforts in R&D innovation," Dong said.

Global Times