China's industrial output expanded 8.9 percent in May from a year earlier, faster than the 7.3 percent rate in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The figure exceeded analysts' forecasts of less than 8 percent.

Large industrial enterprises (those with annual revenue of more than 5 million yuan, or about 714,285 U.S. dollars), also reported May output growth of 8.9 percent.

Their expansion rate was 7.1 percentage points less than a year earlier but 1.6 percentage points above that of April.

The sales ratio of industrial products for May was 97.34 percent, 0.49 percentage point lower than a year earlier.

Output of many major products rose. Auto production rose 29 percent to 1.148 million units. The output of steel was up 7.4 percent to 57.29 million tonnes and coal was up 9.6 percent to 250 million tonnes.

Power generation, however, fell 2.7 percent to 283.89 billion kilowatt-hours and crude oil output was down 1.1 percent to 16.03 million tonnes.

Source:Xinhua