BEIJING, May 24 -- China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) administered by the central government, or the central SOEs, posted a net profit increase of 18.2 percent year-on-year in the first four months.

The pace of increase was 4.2 percentage points lower compared with that in the first quarter.

The combined net profits of the 121 central SOEs totaled 290.69 billion yuan (44.72 billion U.S. dollars) during the January-April period, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) said in a statement on its website Monday.

The administration did not give any explanation for the profit rise nor the lower growth rate.

The SASAC said revenues of the central SOEs rose 24.1 percent year-on-year to 6.08 trillion yuan from January to April.

The SOEs had 553.99 billion yuan payable in taxes and fees for the first four months, up 27.3 percent from the same period of last year, according to the statement.