The NBS said that China's industrial sector remained on the fast track, registering a year-on-year 12.7 percent growth in August this year. The hot sales of cars led to a contribution of 14.4 percent in the transport equipment manufacturing sector.

The sector's incremental value reached 263.4 billion yuan (about US$31.8 billion) in August, with a total value in the first eight months this year of 1.97 trillion yuan (about US$237.5 billion), according to the bureau's monthly industrial report.

The five major industrial sectors of transport equipment manufacturing, telecom equipment manufacturing, textile, chemical and metallurgy, created 46.9 percent of the whole industrial growth in August, in which the proportion of metallurgy surged from 4.9 percent to 5.9 percent due to the rapid growth of steel and steel products.

The NBS said that enterprises of all types kept a double-digit growth in August. The state-owned and state-controlled enterprises grew by 11.2 percent over the same period last year, with its incremental value totaling 138.8 billion yuan.

The value of collectively owned enterprises at 23.1 billion yuan reflects an increase of 10.5 percent, while share-holding firms and foreign-funded firms increased by 13.2 percent and 13.5 percent respectively.

The NBS noted that the value of industrial exports hit 170.6 billion yuan in August, up 24.9 percent year-on-year, 1.2 percentage points faster than that of last month.

Sales of industrial products reached 98 percent of the total output in August, 0.61 percentage points higher than the last month, while the sales during January-August reached 97.47 percent, the bureau said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2002)