Sector’s output increases by 6.9 percent in the first half of 2017

China’s industrial economy has maintained a momentum of steady and sound growth in the first half of the year as industrial output increased 6.9 percent on a year-on-year basis, the best performance in the past three years.

The growth rate is 0.9 percentage points higher than that in the same period last year, and the performance of enterprises continued to improve, with the main business income and profits growing by 13.5 percent and 22.7 percent in the first five months, said the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday.

“We estimate the industrial economy will maintain steady growth in the second half as the favorable factors have accumulated, especially those facilitated by the supply-side structural reform,” said Zheng Lixin, spokesman for the ministry.

Zheng said the ministry will increase its efforts to promote private investment and technical upgrading in industrial sectors, as well as push forward the establishment of a national manufacturing innovation center and smart manufacturing demonstration areas.

“We will boost the development of entrepreneurship and innovation platforms for manufacturing, and pay attention to the new and emerging sectors, such as big data, artificial intelligence and industrial internet.”

The output of the manufacturing sector increased 7.4 per- cent in the first half, 0.5 percentage points faster than the same period last year, ministry data showed. And the output and the investment of the high-end manufacturing sector increased by 13.1 percent and 21.5 percent respectively in the first six months.

“We have been promoting the key projects related to the Made in China 2025 strategy. the C919, the first homegrown large passenger aircraft made its successful flight, and the first domestic aircraft carriers was successfully launched,” said Zhang Feng, general engineer of the ministry.

Zhang said the electronic and equipment manufactur-