China's industrial output accelerated 12.3 percent in August from a year earlier, after gaining 10.8 percent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday.

The August growth rate was 0.5 percentage points lower than the growth figure in the same month last year, but 1.5 percentage points up from July.

From January to August, China's industrial output rose 8.1 percent over the same period last year.

The growth rate was 7.6 percentage points lower than that in the 2008 January-August period, but up 0.6 percentage points from the first seven months of this year.

(Xinhua News Agency September 11, 2009)