China's industrial capacity utilization rate rose in Q2

BEIJING-- China's industrial capacity utilization rate stood at 74.4 percent in the second quarter of 2020, rising 7.1 percentage points from the first quarter as the country has been resuming work and production, official data showed Thursday.

Manufacturing capacity utilization rate increased by 7.6 percentage points from the first quarter to 74.8 percent, leading in the three major sectors, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The figure of the mining sector grew 5 percentage points from the first quarter to 72.1 percent in the second quarter, while that for the production and supply of electricity, thermal power, gas and water climbed 2.8 percentage points to 70.6 percent, the NBS said in a statement.

On a year-on-year basis, the industrial capacity utilization rate in the second quarter fell 2 percentage points from last year, narrowing from the 8.6-percentage-point drop in the first quarter of the year.

In the first half of the year, the country's industrial capacity utilization rate reached 71.1 percent, down 5.1 percentage points year on year.

The country's industrial production recovered in the second quarter, with the value-added industrial output expanding 4.4 percent year on year, bucking the trend of dropping by 8.4 percent in the first quarter.