Industrial production increased 15.4 percent in the first two months from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said today.

The sales rate of industrial goods by these companies, defined as those with annual revenue of more than 5 million yuan (US$703,235), edged up 0.7 percentage points year-on-year to reach 97.5 percent.

The first two months are combined to factor in the impact of the Spring Festival, which falls either in January or February.

The export value of industrial goods generated a combined value of 1.08 trillion yuan, up 14.8 percent from the same period last year, the bureau said.

Among the subcategories, the production of oil climbed 1.2 percent to 30.78 million tons while that of coal expanded 13.4 percent to 360 million tons.

Electricity output climbed 11.3 percent to 516.9-billion-kilowatt hours.

The production of pig iron increased 7.3 percent from a year ago to 75.63 million tons, while that of crude steel jumped 6.4 percent to 79.45 million tons and steel rose by 12.3 percent to 89.05 million tons, the bureau said.

Cement output dipped 2.8 percent to around 140 million tons, the bureau said.

Vehicle output jumped 12.5 percent to 1.52 million units, including 820,000 sedans, the bureau said.

Domestic auto makers maintained double-digit growth and sold 488,900 vehicles in February despite the country's heavy snowstorms, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said earlier this month.

The textile business posted growth of 11.6 percent. The output of chemicals industry increased 13.3 percent while non-metal minerals production expanded 19. 7 percent.

The ferrous metallurgical industry gained 14 percent while the production of computers and electronic equipment added 20.3 percent.

China's worst winter storms in decades helped push inflation to a near 12-year high of 8.7 percent in the first two months since food and power supplies were disrupted. The government is struggling to rein in the overheated economy by ordering banks to raise the amount of reserve deposits and increasing commodity supplies.

(Shanghai Daily March 13, 2008)