Profit growth in China's central State-owned enterprises (SOEs) accelerated in the first three quarters of 2018, official data showed.

Combined profits reached 1.35 trillion yuan ($195 billion) between January and September, up 21.5 percent year-on-year, according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

SOEs' cumulative business revenue rose 11 percent year-on-year to about 21.1 trillion yuan for the January-September period, about 0.9 percentage points higher than the growth rate of the first half of 2018.

By the end of September, the average debt-to-asset ratio for central SOEs was 66 percent, a year-on-year drop of 0.5 percentage points and a decrease of 0.3 percentage points compared to that seen at the beginning of this year.

The interest-bearing liabilities of central SOEs totaled 15.4 trillion yuan, which remained as they were at the end of August with 6.1 percent year-on-year growth rate.