2nd LD-Writethru: China's industrial output maintains steady growth in November

BEIJING, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) -- China's industrial output posted steady growth in November, with progress in structural upgrading, official data showed Thursday.

The output expanded 6.1 percent year on year in November, slightly down from a 6.2-percent increase in October, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

On a month-on-month basis, industrial output edged up 0.48 percent from October.

In the January-November period, combined industrial output grew 6.6 percent year on year, mildly slower than the 6.7-percent increase for the first 10 months of the year, but faster than the 6-percent growth for the same period of last year.

Corporate profits remained strong, with total profits of industrial firms above the designated size surging 23.3 percent year on year in the first 10 months, up from 22.8 percent in the first nine months.

The profit rate for the firms' principal business climbed to 6.24 percent in the first 10 months from 5.69 percent a year earlier.

"The industry is moving toward the medium and high end of the value chain," NBS spokesperson Mao Shengyong said at a press conference.

In November, output growth of the high-tech industry and equipment manufacturing industry stayed above 10 percent and 14 percent respectively, Mao said.

Leverage continued to go down, with the debt ratio of industrial firms above the designated size falling 0.5 percentage points from a year earlier to 55.7 percent at the end of October.

The industrial sector has also become greener, with the output growth of six major energy-consuming industries slowing 0.9 percentage points in November from October, according to Mao.

Industrial output is used to measure the activity of designated large enterprises with annual turnover of at least 20 million yuan (around 3 million U.S. dollars). Enditem