Industrial demand for power to perk up in third quarter

The downtrend in China's power consumption has slowed in March with demand expected to pick up over the next few months, according to the China Electricity Council (CEC).

"Although the power consumption still witnessed negative growth last month, the milder figures have showed some positive signs," said Xue Jing, director of the statistics and information department under the CEC.

The country's power generation, an important barometer of the economy, was 283.39 billion kWh in March, a decrease of 2.01 percent year-on-year. Power usage in the first quarter was 780.99 billion kWh, falling by 4.02 percent year-on-year, according to statistics with CEC.