SHANGHAI: Profits earned by Chinese industrial firms rose 17.9 percent in June to 588.08 billion yuan ($94.98 billion) from a year earlier, up sharply from an 8.9 percent rise in May, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

For the first six months of 2014, profits rose 11.4 percent from the same period last year to 2.86 trillion yuan, the bureau said in data released on Sunday.

Recent data reinforced market expectations that the world's second-largest economy is powering through its recent soft patch as the government uses targeted measures to support growth.