May industrial output up 16%

China’s industrial output grew by 16% last month despite fears of slowing global consumer demand, the South China Morning Post reported. The National Bureau of Statistics said the growth rate was 0.3 percentage points higher than April’s figure, but 2.1 percentage points down from the same month the previous year, despite the fact that there were more working days in May this year compared to last as public holidays were reduced to three from seven. Industrial output growth for the first five months of the year stood at 16.3% year-on-year. May’s industrial output growth was led by the transportation equipment industry, which grew by 22.9%. The electric generation equipment industry posted 20.8% growth. Coal production growth jumped 18.5% and power generation grew by 11.8%.