STABILIZING
Industrial production and the value added of the service sector accounted for 40.6 percent and 51.4 percent, respectively, of China's total GDP in the first nine months of 2015.
As a result, faster expansion of industrial output and retail sales are set to support the broader economic growth.
Other November macroeconomic figures released earlier this week also indicated improvement in the Chinese economy, including eased import contraction, a pickup in consumer inflation and higher-than-expected new yuan loans.
NBS spokesperson Sheng Laiyun said on Friday that the economy's improvement is being helped by growth-stabilizing policies and that it is on track to meet an official growth target of around 7 percent this year.
Sheng cited accelerating retail sales and growth in November's non-manufacturing producer managers' index as encouraging.
China's economy expanded 6.9 percent year on year in the third quarter of 2015, the lowest quarterly growth in six years.
But employment remained sound, income growth outpaced GDP growth, and grain output increased for a 12th straight year, all of which Sheng said provided support for China to reach its annual growth target.
The main worry lies in the prolonged weakness in the property sector, which has been a significant supporting force for China's economic growth.
Real estate investment rose just 1.3 percent year on year in the first 11 months, compared with the 2-percent growth for the Jan.-Oct. period.
That was a sharp retreat from the 10.5-percent growth recorded in 2014 and the 19.8-percent gain in 2013.
Overall, the Chinese property market remained sluggish in 2015 due to weak demand and a supply glut, prompting authorities to take easing measures, including interest rate cuts, reducing down payments and scrapping home-purchase restrictions.
But destocking pressure persists. Unsold homes nationwide hit a record 686.3 million square meters at the end of October, up 17.8 percent from a year earlier, according to official figures.
Wang Tao, a UBS economist, called a more prolonged property destocking process "the biggest downside risk" for China's growth.
The knock-on effect of a property construction downshift would continue to spread through the rest of the Chinese economy for the next two years, dampening demand for commodities and machinery, Wang said in a research note last month.
