China's industrial growth in January rose 8.9 percent compared with the first month of 1999, according to official data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Monday.

The industrial value-added output registered 164.3 billion yuan (US$19.7 billion) last month, the NBS said.

The growth rate for last month was 0.4 percentage higher than the 8.5 percent average a year ago.

Production of State and collectively owned enterprises grew steadily but the growth was outpaced by share-holding enterprises and overseas-funded businesses, the bureau said in a monthly report.

China's State-owned and State-controlled enterprises showed an added value worth 96.3 billion yuan (US$11.6 billion) in January, 5.2 per cent higher year on year.

The figure for collectively-owned was 23.1 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion), rising 6.3 per cent on an annualized basis.

Industrial value-added output by share-holding enterprises and foreign-invested enterprises as well as those invested from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan witnessed "rapid development." They surged 9.9 per cent over the previous year's figures to 29.4 billion yuan (US$3.5 billion) for the industrial sector and 13.7 per cent to 36.3 billion yuan (US$4.3 billion) for foreign-invested enterprises in January, respectively.

Heavy and light industrial sectors reported balanced growth rates last month, rising 9 per cent and 8.7 per cent, respectively.

The figures for heavy industry came in at 93.7 billion yuan (US$11.2 billion) while the numbers for light industry turned out to be 70.6 billion yuan (US$8.5 billion), the bureau said.

Industrial exports maintained strong momentum last month, up 19.1 per cent over a year ago, totalling 82.5 billion yuan (US$9.9 billion).

NBS said the rapid expansion of exports could be partly attributed to the country's incentive efforts such as the increase in export tax rebates.

In another development, sales of industrial commodities boomed last month, with 95 per cent of products being sold. This figure was 1.39 per cent higher than during the same period in 1999, the NBS said.