China's industrial output expanded 8.9 percent in May from a year earlier, faster than the 7.3 percent rate in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

The figure exceeded analysts' forecasts of less than 8 percent. It was the highest monthly growth rate since October last year, said the NBS in a statement on its website.

Large industrial enterprises (those with annual revenue of more than 5 million yuan, or about 714,285 U.S. dollars), also reported May output growth of 8.9 percent.

Their expansion rate was 7.1 percentage points less than a year earlier but 1.6 percentage points above that of April.

The sales ratio of industrial products for May was 97.34 percent, 0.49 percentage point lower than a year earlier.

Output of many major products rose. Auto production rose 29 percent to 1.15 million units. The output of steel was up 7.4 percent to 57.29 million tonnes and coal was up 9.6 percent to 250 million tonnes.

Power generation, however, fell 2.7 percent to 283.89 billion kilowatt-hours and crude oil output was down 1.1 percent to 16.03 million tonnes.

Zhuang Jian, a senior economist with the Asian Development Bank, said the higher rate in May was a positive signal and might mean the country could achieve its 8-percent economic growth goal for 2009.

The NBS statement attributed the faster-than-expected industrial output growth to six factors.

First, a rebound in the growth rate of heavy industry, which accounts for about 70 percent of all large industrial enterprises. The growth rate of heavy industry recovered from continued declines since last September to 8.6 percent in May, 1.7percentage points faster than April.

Second, almost three-quarters of all 39 industrial categories saw their growth rates accelerate in May compared with April. For instance, the high-tech industry grew 7.3 percent, 2.6 percentage points faster than April.

Third, the output of nearly 60 percent of all 494 industrial products grew faster than the previous month.

Fourth, 20 of the 31 provincial regions reported higher growth rates. Economic powerhouse Guangdong Province posted a growth rate that was 3.2 percentage points faster than April.

Fifth, output in quake-hit Sichuan Province grew 32.5 percent in May, compared with 3.6 percent in May 2008 when it was hit by the deadly earthquake.

Finally, excluding the quake factor, the national growth rate of industrial output was 1 percentage point faster than in April. Meanwhile, the contraction in power generation was 0.8 percentage point less than in April, showing that power output was consistent with industrial production.