China's centrally-administered state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reported net profits of 181.37 billion yuan (28.77 billion U.S. dollars) in the first quarter, down 13.6 percent year on year, the country's SOE regulator said Friday.

The drop was attributed to the sluggish world economy cutting into the profitability of centrally-administered SOEs with close ties to international markets, the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council said in a statement on its website.

"But judging from the general business situations of central SOEs, operations in March saw an obvious turnaround, as net profits surged 50.6 percent month on month to 82.6 billion yuan," the statement said.

In the first quarter, the total revenue of central SOEs grew 12.3 percent to 5.01 trillion yuan, while taxes and fees rose 18.8 percent to 487.77 billion yuan, according to the statement.