TIANJIN - China's mining sector saw revenues increase 12.4-fold year-on-year in 2016, due to improved technology in prospecting and mining, said China's land resources minister Saturday.

China spent more than 77 billion yuan ($11.7 billion) in geographic prospecting in 2016 to verify new reserves of 36 varieties of mine resources, two new oil fields, two major natural gas fields and 764.3 billion cubic meters of shale gas reserves.

Minister Jiang Daming made the remarks at the 2017 China International Mining Congress held Saturday in North China's Tianjin  municipality.

He said the mining sector had recovered from the doldrums, with the 2016 output of non-renewable energy reaching 3.46 billion tons of coal equivalent, 1.28 billion tons of iron ore and 52.83 million tons of 10 types of non-ferrous metal.

Jiang said China had also made a number of scientific breakthroughs in surveying technology such as deep-sea drilling at a depth over 10,000 meters and manned deep-sea submersibles.

The central government approved a 30 billion yuan budget and helped channel 60 billion yuan of local government spending and social funding to carry out environmental treatment in mining areas in 2016.