China's manufacturing sector recorded 454.5 billion yuan (55.4 billion US dollars) in value added in August, up 15.9 percent year on year, the National Bureauof Statistics said Friday.

According to the bureau's monthly report on the manufacturing sector, the growth rate is 0.4 percentage points higher than the previous month, but 1.2 percentage points lower than that a year earlier.

The figures exclude figures for manufacturing firms each with an annual sales below 5 million yuan (600,000 US dollars) since 1997.

The report indicated that 98.2 percent of all the manufactured goods were sold in August, down by 0.5 percentage points from July.

In August, crude and rolled steel output grew by 21.8 percent and 22.9 percent, respectively, on a yearly basis, or 1.5 percentage and 4.4 percentage points more than in July.

The bureau also posted an increase of 17.2 percent, 5.7 percentand 12.1 percent in the output of raw coal, crude oil and electricity, respectively.

The production of cement and alumina in August continued to fall. Their output increased by 9.4 percent and 9.1 percent, respectively, year on year, but the growth rate dropped by 1.6 and1.7 percentage points from July.

Automobile production rose by 3.6 percent from a year earlier, with that of sedans up 1.5 percent.

The value added of the sector totaled 3.4 trillion yuan (413.5 billion US dollars) in the firs eight months of the year, up 17.1 percent on an annual basis.

Source: Xinhua