SCMP – 12 December 2008
China’s power production slumped 7.1 per cent last month, the biggest decline in more than seven years, as factories shut because of reduced exports, preliminary data from the nation’s largest power distributor showed. Electricity output fell to 252.6 billion kilowatt-hours in November, according to statistics in an internal newsletter published by the State Grid Corp of China. That is the steepest drop since January 2001, data on the website of the National Bureau of Statistics shows. November is the second consecutive month in which electricity output has fallen. Production dropped 4 per cent to 264.5 billion kilowatt-hours in October, the first decline since March 2005. Bloomberg