Constantly growing profits boosted China's national business climate index (BCI) last year.

The BCI rose 2.7 points from the third quarter to 139.4 points in the fourth quarter, 7.7 points up over the same period of 2005,the National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday.

The index, a result of the bureau's quarterly survey of 19,500 companies, stood at 131.5 points in the first quarter. It then climbed to 135.9 in the second and 136.7 points in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, most industries saw their BCIs rise markedly year on year, while the BCI for mining firms declined and the indices of transportation and storage sectors remained static.

Meanwhile, in the first 11 months, state-owned industries and those with annual sales above five million yuan (625,000 U.S. dollars) saw profits surge 30.7 percent over the same period of 2005.

Profit growth for the first quarter was 21.3 percent over the same period of 2005, for the first half up 28 percent and 29.6 percent for the first three quarters.