BEIJING — China's non-ferrous metal sector started well in 2021, seeing robust expansion in the first quarter of the year, official data showed.

The output of 10 types of non-ferrous metals stood at 16.05 million tons, increasing 11.7 percent from a year earlier and resulting in an average first-quarter year-on-year growth of 8.2 percent over the past two years, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The 10 major non-ferrous metals are copper, aluminum, lead, zinc, nickel, tin, antimony, mercury, magnesium, and titanium.

Total profits of major companies in the sector rose 70.3 percent year-on-year on average over the past two years to 65.18 billion yuan (about $10.08 billion) in the January-March period, hitting a new high of the same period in the past decade, according to the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association.

Major non-ferrous enterprises have an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan.

Data from the association also shows the increase of fixed-asset investment to the sector as well as continuous recovery of non-ferrous enterprises' confidence.