SINOCHEM Corp, China's biggest chemical trader, said its profit rose 62 percent to a record in the first four months of the year, bolstered by surging energy demand.

Sales climbed 13 percent during the January-to-April period, state-owned Sinochem said in a statement posted on the Website of the state Assets Supervision and Administration Commission yesterday. "Revenue and profit rose to records," Sinochem said, without providing figures. China's energy companies are expanding capacity to benefit from demand in the world's fastest-growing major economy, which expanded by 11 percent in the first quarter. Sinochem aims to double its profit to more than US$1 billion within three years, Bloomberg News reported. The Beijing-based company's 2006 profit rose 27 percent to four billion yuan (US$516 million) from a year earlier, it said in February.