Chinas military equipment firm says 1Q sales rise 8.4%

China South Industries Group Corporation (CSIGC), one of the country's military firms, said Sunday that its first-quarter sales rose 8.4 percent year on year to 38.99 billion yuan (5.73 billion U.S. dollars).

The company pocketed 710 million yuan in profits in the first three months, with monthly profits increasing month on month, according to statistics released by the company. It did not give annual comparative figures for first-quarter profits.

CSIGC is a manufacturer of special equipment for the country's armed forces, and also produces equipment for civilian uses.

The company's products include special equipment, automotive spare parts, motorcycles, and equipment for power transmission and transformation, new energy and the fiber-optic industry.

In the first quarter, the company sold 300,000 sets of vehicles, up 13.2 percent year on year, according to the centrally administered state-owned enterprise. The growth was more than 9 percent higher than a 3.88-percent growth in the country's overall domestic auto sales in the same period.

It said sales from its power transmission and transformation, as well as new-energy sectors, jumped almost 60 percent year on year to 3.44 billion yuan. The company's sales of transformers surged 73 percent.

It did not offer figures on other categories of products.