BEIJING, Mar. 1 -- China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported a net profit of 70.55 billion yuan (about 10.73 billion U.S. dollars) in January, up 24 percent year on year, the nation's SOEs regulator said Monday.

According to a statement of China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), the combined business revenue of the centrally administered SOEs reached 1.431 trillion yuan last month, up 23 percent year on year, but the growth rate was 44.8 percentage points lower than that of 2010.

SASAC said the growth rate soared 67.8 percent in January of 2010 when compared with the same period of 2009, which saw a sharp decline in combined business revenue due to the global financial crisis.

The centrally administered SOEs turned in 182.7 billion yuan in taxes in January, up 29.6 percent year on year, but the growth was 22.1 percentage points smaller than that of last year.

There are 121 centrally-administered SOEs under the SASAC.