China's power use up 4.6% in May

BEIJING - China's electricity consumption, a key barometer of economic activity, rose 4.6 percent in May as the impact of the novel coronavirus waned, data from the National Energy Administration (NEA) showed Friday.

Total power use hit 592.6 billion kWh last month, NEA data showed.

Specifically, power use by the first and secondary industries rose 15.5 percent and 2.9 percent year-on-year, respectively, and that by the tertiary industry went up 3.6 percent from the same period a year ago.

Residential power consumption surged 15 percent year-on-year to 79.1 billion kWh during the period, said the NEA.

In the first five months, the country's power use fell 2.8 percent year-on-year to 2.72 trillion kWh.

The data came as a string of other economic indicators also showed signs of a rebound on the back of supporting policies to coordinate growth and COVID-19 containment.

Factory activities continued to pick up in May with China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, going up 4.4 percent year-on-year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.