China's Electricity consumption, a common indicator of economic activity, rose 8.8 percent year-on-year to 495 terawatt-hours in July, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA) on Wednesday.

The growth was 4.3 percentage points higher than the growth in July 2012and 2.5 percentage points over June this year, the NEA announced online.

In the first seven months, power consumption increased 5.7 percent from the same period last year to 2,990 terawatt-hours.

During the same period, electricity use by the service sector grew 9.9 percent, to 351 terawatt-hours, while the industrial sector consumed 2,210 terawatt-hours, 5.4 percent more than a year ago.

The agricultural sector witnessed a slight drop of 1.7 percent. Residential power use increased 5.1 percent year-on-year.

China added 39.3 gigawatts of power capacity in the January-July period, including 12.7 gigawatts of hydropower and 17.5 gigawatts of thermal power.

Wednesday's power consumption figures follow a string of macroeconomic data released in the past weeks pointing to a stabilizing of the world's second-largest economy.

Industrial value-added output expanded 9.7 percent year-on-year in July, the highest growth in the past five months, the National Bureau of Statistics announced on Friday.

Similar acceleration was seen in the manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI), another indicator of economic wellbeing, which rose slightly to 50.3 percent in July from 50.1 percent in June.

Both exports and imports recorded unexpectedly high growth in July, reversing the declines in June.

Foreign trade expanded 7.8 percent year-on-year in July, compared with a decline of 2 percent the previous month.

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