The mainland's industrial-output growth improved last month, helped by healthy export orders and strong demand for information-technology products, according to the report of South China Morning Post on December 7.

Value-added industrial output last month rose 7.6 per cent from a year earlier to 191.9 billion yuan (about HK$179.13 billion), up from 7 per cent growth in October.

The production of telecommunications equipment, mobile phones, fax machines, and computers rose between 13.3 per cent and 68.8 per cent, compared with the same month last year.

Economists expect growth in industrial output and the overall economy to gather pace next year, driven by a recovery in exports and consumption.

"More and more people have turned optimistic about the mainland economy and many analysts have forecast the economy to grow by over 8 per cent next year," said Liao Qun, senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank.

The economy grew by 7.4 per cent year on year in the first three-quarters, compared with 7.8 per cent for the whole of last year.

"This year, the government has taken more care in using the current stimulus package of 60 billion yuan to ensure money is well spent on worthy infrastructure projects.

Official figures have shown state investment on fixed assets rose 0.6 per cent in October, following a fall of 2.8 per cent in September.

In the first 11 months, industrial output rose an annualized 9 per cent to 1.82 trillion yuan.

Last month alone, output by the state sector rose 6.5 per cent year on year to 110.7 billion yuan, while that of foreign-funded enterprises was up 14.6 per cent to reach 41 billion-yuan.

Output by heavy industries rose 7.8 per cent to 108.5 billion yuan, while output by light industries was up 7.4 per cent to 83.4 billion yuan.