Profits of China's major industrial firms rose 4.8 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2016, reversing last year's downward trend, official data showed Sunday.

　　Profits at industrial companies with annual revenues of more than 20 million yuan ($3.1 million) totaled 780.7 billion yuan during the January-February period, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

　　The profits registered a 4.7 percent year-on-year fall in December and a 2.3 percent annual decrease in 2015.

　　He Ping, an official with the NBS department of industry, attributed the latest profit growth to increased sales and a milder decline in factory product prices.

　　In the first two months, revenues from the firms' primary business climbed 1 percent year-on-year, improving from a 0.6 percent drop in December and a 0.8 percent increase for 2015.

　　In the January-February period, China's producer price index, which measures the prices of goods at the factory gate, slipped 5.1 percent year-on-year, narrowing from a drop of 5.9 percent in December and 5.2 percent for 2015.

　　JZ Securities economist Deng Haiqing described the return to growth as a more certain signal of improving economic fundamentals.

　　Downstream demand is rebounding, Deng said, citing a faster growth in property investment, which accounts for a significant part of China's economy and creates orders for a variety of industrial goods.

　　Investment in China's property sector rose 3 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2016, higher than the 1 percent rate for all of 2015.

　　The oil refining, electrical machinery and food industries contributed most of the industrial profit growth in the first two months, NBS data showed.

　　Private companies outperformed the State sector, with profits up 7.5 percent year-on-year, compared with a 14.5 percent plunge in profits of State-owned industrial producers.

　　Despite the recovery, part of the industrial profit growth was a result of the lower base a year earlier, He noted.

　　Industrial profits dipped 4.2 percent year-on-year in that period, NBS data showed.

　　Compared with the same period of 2014, industrial profits this year only inched up 0.4 percent, said He.