China's power use up 6 pct in April

BEIJING, May 19 (Xinhua) -- China's electricity consumption, a key barometer of economic activity, rose 6 percent year on year in April, official data showed Tuesday.

Power use totaled 820.5 billion kilowatt-hours last month, according to the National Energy Administration.

A breakdown of the data showed that power consumed by the primary industry rose 2 percent year on year to 11.2 billion kilowatt-hours, while power consumed by the secondary industry increased 5.3 percent to 558.4 billion kilowatt-hours.

Within the secondary industry, industrial power use rose 5.5 percent year on year to 553.8 billion kilowatt-hours, while electricity consumption by high-tech equipment manufacturing climbed 10.1 percent to 105 billion kilowatt-hours.

Power use by the tertiary industry reached 151.7 billion kilowatt-hours in April, up 8.9 percent year on year. The charging and battery swapping service sector and internet data services reported rapid growth in electricity consumption, rising 61.9 percent and 42.8 percent, respectively.

Electricity consumption by residents rose 6 percent from a year earlier to 99.2 billion kilowatt-hours.

In the first four months of the year, China's total power use exceeded 3.33 trillion kilowatt-hours, up 5.4 percent year on year, the data showed.