State-owned industries in central China's Henan Province registered combined profits of 290 million yuan in the first nine months of this year.

The enterprises were in the red for 31 consecutive months before July. Since August, the industrial economy had shown a sound operating trend, local authorities said.

The ratio of sales to production for Henan's industrial products reached 96.6 percent in the nine-month period, up 1.8 percentage points on a yearly basis, statistics show.

Authorities attributed the industrial growth to development of new products, more products from large and medium-sized enterprises and the increase of output of consumer goods. The outputs of textiles and coal went down. (Xinhua)