China's Oct industrial output rises 9.6%

BEIJING - Industrial production growth continued to accelerate in October, presenting evidence that China's economy is picking up steam after seeing its lowest growth rate in more than three years.

China's value-added industrial output rose 9.6 percent year on year in October, picking up from 9.2 percent in September and 8.9 percent in August, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) announced Friday.

The increase also beat analysts' forecast of 9.4 percent for October.

The value-added industrial output expanded 10 percent from one year earlier during the January-October period, the NBS said. The pace of increase was unchanged from that of the first nine months.

Despite signs of a mild improvement in industrial production, the annual growth of value-added industrial output in the first 10 months was still below the government's target of 11 percent for 2012.

Fixed-asset investment climbed 20.7 percent in the first ten months compared with the same period of 2011, quickening from the 20.5-percent expansion logged during the January-September period.

Retail sales rose 14.5 percent last month from one year ago, slightly higher than September's 14.2-percent increase, the NBS said.

The consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, grew 1.7 percent year on year in October, down from September's 1.9-percent rise.

Zhao Qingming, an economist at Beijing-based University of International Business and Economics, said the reading of October data indicates that China's economy has bottomed out, but the recovery will be moderate amid increasing uncertainties both at home and abroad.

The key Shanghai stock index inched down 0.12 percent to 2,069.07 on Friday. The index has dropped over 16 percent from this year's peak over concerns about a slowdown in the national economy.

The country's overall economic growth slowed to an annual rate of 7.4 percent in the third quarter of the year, the slowest quarterly growth in more than three years.