A miner works at a coal mine in North China's Hebei province, May 2, 2015. [Photo/VCG]

SHIJIAZHUANG - The coal industry of North China's Hebei province returned to profit for the first time since 2014, provincial authorities said Friday.

From January to October, Hebei's major coal mining and washing industry registered a profit of 140 million yuan ($20 million), reversing the 4.5 billion yuan loss over the same period in 2015, according to the Hebei Provincial Bureau of Statistics.

It is the first time that the heavy-industry province has seen profits in its coal sector since early 2014 when the whole industry plunged into loss due to declining coal prices, structural adjustment of energy supply, and pressure in cutting redundant production capacity for environmental protection.

Experts said Hebei's coal industry has turned profitable, after ending a two-year-plus loss, responsible for a 2.7 percentage-point growth in the provincial economy in 2016.

China is the world's largest consumer of coal. The industry has long been plagued by overcapacity and has felt the pinch over the past two years as the economy cooled and demand fell.

In the first ten months of 2016, Hebei closed a total of 54 coal mines, cutting coal production capacity by 14 million tons. As of late November, China's coal production capacity has been reduced by about 250 million tons.