China's electricity consumption, a key barometer of economic activity, rose 4.5 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2019, the country's top economic planner said on Wednesday.
Power use by the secondary industry increased by 3%, and that by the tertiary industry 8.8%, said Meng Wei, a spokesperson with the National Development and Reform Commission.
Some 28 provincial regions saw a growth in electricity consumption, with the use in four regions expanding over 10 percent, Meng said.
In August alone, the country's power use grew 3.6 percent year-on-year, 0.9 percentage points higher than that in July, according to Meng.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics or NBS showed that China's power generation climbed 1.7 percent year-on-year to 668.2 billion kilowatt-hours in August, a faster growth than the 0.6-percent rate recorded in July.
In the January-August period, power generation rose 2.8 percent year-on-year to 4.7 trillion kilowatt-hours, the NBS data showed.
China's fixed-asset investment or FAI grew 5.5 percent year-on-year in the first eight months of 2019, 0.2 percentage points slower than the first seven months, the NBS said on Monday.
Compared with the same period of last year, the growth was up 0.2 percentage points.
The FAI amounted to 40.06 trillion yuan in the Jan-Aug period, NBS data showed.
Private-sector investment increased 4.9 percent to 23.7 trillion yuan, 0.5 percentage points slower than that in the first seven months.
FAI includes capital spent on infrastructure, property, machinery and other physical assets.
From January to August, investment in the primary sector of the economy went down 3.4 percent year-on-year, while that in the secondary sector rose 2.1 percent.
In the secondary sector, industrial investment climbed 3.3 percent year-on-year during the period, 0.5 percentage points lower than that in the first seven months.
Investment in the tertiary sector rose 7.3 percent year-on-year to 25.78 trillion yuan in the first eight months. In this sector, investment in infrastructure climbed 4.2 percent year on year during the period.
China's retail sales of consumer goods rose 7.5 percent year-on-year in August to 3.39 trillion yuan or $479.78 billion, the NBS said on Sept 16.
The pace was 0.1 percentage points lower than the previous month.
Sales of consumer goods, excluding automobiles, rose 9.3 percent year-on-year in August to 3.08 trillion yuan. The pace was 0.5 percentage points higher than the previous month.
Retail sales in urban areas surged 7.2 percent to 2.91 trillion yuan. Rural retail sales climbed 8.9 percent to 476.2 billion yuan.
In the first eight months, retail sales of consumer goods climbed 8.2 percent year-on-year to 26.22 trillion yuan. The pace was 0.1 percentage points lower than that in the first seven months.
Online sales surged 16.8 percent year-on-year to 6.44 trillion yuan in the first eight months, and the growth rate was similar to that in the first seven months.
Online sales of physical commodities surged 20.8 percent year-on-year to 5.07 trillion yuan, accounting for 19.4 percent of the total volume of consumer goods sales. The ratio was 2.1 percentage points higher than the same period last year.
（source:ourjiangsu.com）
