BEIJING, Dec. 16 -- China has seen a surge of high-technology manufacturing companies and a spike in their profits from 2008 to 2013, a signal of progress in economic transformation, official data showed on Tuesday.

There were 26,894 large high-tech manufacturing companies by the end of last year, accounting for 7.8 percent of all large manufacturing companies, up 1.3 percentage points from 2008.

They realized a profit of 723.37 billion yuan (118.23 billion U.S. dollars) in 2013, up 165.5 percent from 2008, according to results of the latest national economic census published by the National Bureau of Statistics.

Their profit growth was 11.5 percentage points higher than the manufacturing industry average level.

Large high-tech manufacturing companies refer to those with annual revenue of 20 million yuan or more from their main business operations.