China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported profits of 723.55 billion yuan (107.83 billion U.S. dollars) in the first eight months, up 50 percent year on year, the nation's SOE watchdog said Friday.

But the growth rate was 4.3 percentage points lower than that in the previous seven months, said a statement from China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) Friday.

The combined business revenue of the central SOEs reached 10.57 trillion yuan, up 40.4 percent year on year. But the growth rate was 2 percentage points down from that for the first seven months.

The central SOEs turned in 888.33 billion yuan in taxes in the first eight months, up 22.6 percent from the same period last year.

The statement gave no reasons for the increased profits.

There are 123 centrally-administered SOEs under the SASAC.