BEIJING, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, expanded 6.4 percent year on year in the first three quarters of 2018, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.
The growth rate was 0.3 percentage points lower than that recorded in the first half.
In September, industrial output increased 5.8 percent year on year, down 0.3 percentage points from August.
Industrial output is used to measure the activity of certain large enterprises with an annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.9 million U.S. dollars). In the first three quarters, manufacturing output expanded 6.7 percent year on year, mining output rose 1.8 percent, while the production and supply of electricity, thermal power, gas, and water posted the fastest growth of 10.3 percent among the three major sectors.
During the period, the production index for the country's service sector rose 7.8 percent year on year, down 0.2 percentage points from H1, the NBS data showed.
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