BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- China's coking industry reported rising production and improving profitability last year, official data showed.

Coke output amounted to 438 million tonnes, up 0.8 percent from one year earlier, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). That reversed from a decline of 3.3 percent registered in 2017.

The sector posted its best profitability in years, lifted by surging demand in steel last year, according to the MIIT.

The MIIT took Shanxi Province, China's major coke production base that accounts for more than one fifth of the country's total output, as an example, where coking enterprises saw their 2018 business revenues and net profits surge 19.8 percent and 120.2 percent year on year to 187.28 billion yuan (about 27.85 billion U.S. dollars) and 17.75 billion yuan, respectively.

The country exported 9.75 million tonnes of coke last year, up 20.8 percent from one year earlier, while the per-tonne price of exports climbed 14.3 percent to 304.9 dollars on average, according to data from the China Coking Industry Association.