China's industrial recovery is yet to be consolidated, and the nation is expecting a "grim and complicated" situation ahead on the road of recovery, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MITT) said on Thursday.

"There have been positive changes in the country's industrial growth, however, the industrial recovery was not well-grounded yet," Zhu Hongren, director of MITT's Department of Operations Monitoring and Coordination told a press conference in Beijing.

China's first-quarter industrial output expanded 5.1 percent year on year, with a rise of 8.3 percent in March, up from a combined growth of 3.8 percent in the first two months.

"A fast slip in industrial growth has been initially checked," said Zhu.

However, the country is facing increasing uncertainties, with the financial crisis deepening and the world's developed economies in a recession, he continued.

"We expect many difficulties in maintaining a stable industrial growth," Zhu said. He cited falling exports on shrinking external demand and severe oversupply in some sectors due to insufficient demands.

China's exports declined by 19.7 percent in the first quarter, with exports of steel down 54.9 percent and that of electrolytic aluminum sinking 75.4 percent.

Zhu predicted that the country may witness an oversupply in crude steel of more than 100 million tonnes this year. He said capacities in the nonferrous metals, chemicals and electronics sectors were slack, without giving specific numbers.

Zhu said the country's consumer product sectors outperformed others in the first quarter, thanks to government measures to boost consumption.

The industrial output of consumer products grew 7.8 percent in the first quarter, with a rise of 9.8 percent in March, an acceleration of 2.4 percentage points from the first two months, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 23, 2009)