China's industrial output growth picks up in October

China's value-added industrial output, an important economic indicator, saw a slightly faster growth in October than the previous month, official data showed Wednesday.

The output expanded 5.9 percent year on year last month, up 0.1 percentage point from that recorded in September, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

On a monthly basis, output in October grew 0.48 percent from September, the NBS figures showed.

In the first 10 months of the year, industrial output rose 6.4 percent, flat with that for the first nine months.

Industrial output, officially called industrial value added, is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises with annual turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.9 million U.S. dollars).

A breakdown of the data showed the production and supply of electricity, thermal power, gas, and water reported a year-on-year growth of 6.8 percent in October, the fastest among the three major sectors but down 4.2 percentage points from September.

Manufacturing output rose 6.1 percent year on year, up 0.4 percentage points from September, according to the NBS data. The output of the mining sector climbed 3.8 percent, up 1.6 percentage points.