Profit in China's 71 major steel enterprises totalled 3.55 billion yuan (519.77 million U.S. dollars) in June, expanding from May when the tables turned after seven-month losses, according to statistics from China's steel association.

This compared with a combined profit of 1.04 billion yuan in the 71 large and medium-sized steel mills in May. Their aggregate profit totalled 1.73 billion yuan in the first half this year, said the latest statistics released by the China Iron and Steel Association this week.

Eight of the 71 companies were still losing money last month, compared with 20 in May.

Steel prices rose "at a stunning rate", said Xu Xiangchun, analyst of Shanghai Ganglian E-commerce Co., Ltd., an IT service company specializing in collecting steel information.

The price increase of major steel producers was the main reason for climbing market prices as there were no statistics indicating a surge in demand or supply shortage, Xu said.

Some 46 steel companies had raised prices this month as of Wednesday, according to statistics of the Umetal.com, an industry service provider.

The price of cold rolled coil in the Beijing market has soared by 500 yuan per tonne since July, and hot rolled coil by 340 yuan, according to the statistics from the IT service company.

The per-tonne prices of medium plates and screw steel also saw an increase of 250 yuan and 600 yuan respectively.

Share prices of Baosteel, the country's largest steel maker, gained 3.43 percent to 9.35 yuan as of 2:05 p.m. Thursday. Angang Steel Company Ltd. surged 4.37 percent to 17.2 yuan.

(Xinhua News Agency July 30, 2009)