BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- Operating revenue of China's culture sector and related businesses rebounded to the pre-COVID-19 level in the first half of the year, as the country's economy continued steady recovery, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.

The combined operating revenue of major firms in the sector topped 5.438 trillion yuan (about 841.47 billion U.S. dollars) in the period, up 30.4 percent year on year, according to an NBS survey covering 63,000 companies.

The figure marked a 22.4-percent increase from the same period of 2019, or an average growth rate of 10.6 percent in the past two years.

In the Jan.-June period, the development of culture and related industries recovered to the pre-epidemic level in terms of operating revenue, NBS senior statistician Zhang Peng said, adding that the revenues of most subsectors even surpassed the pre-epidemic levels.

"China's culture and related industries logged sound development in the first half of the year, with consumption potential released at a faster pace and the leading role of new business forms strengthened," Zhang said.

NBS data also showed that the total operating revenue of the 16 subcategories closely related to new business forms, such as animation and games and digital publishing, went up 32.9 percent from the same period last year, marking an average year-on-year growth of 25.3 percent over the past two years. Enditem