China industrial output rose 8.9% year-on-year in August

Production at China's factories, workshops and mines weakened in August, the government said Sunday, in a fresh sign of slowdown in the world's second-largest economy. Industrial output increased 8.9 percent in August compared with the same month last year, the National Bureau of Statistics announced. That represented a slowdown from the 9.2 percent gain recorded in July. Output for the first eight months of 2012, meanwhile, rose 10.1 percent compared with the same period in 2011, the National Bureau of Statistics said. Retail sales -- China's main gauge of consumer spending -- were 13.2 percent higher in August year-on-year, the bureau said, marginally better than the 13.1 percent increase recorded in July. Urban fixed asset investments, a key measure of government spending on infrastructure, rose 20.2 percent in the first eight months of 2012 compared with the same period the year before, the bureau also said. China's economy expanded 7.6 percent in the second quarter through the end of June for its weakest performance in three years, marking the sixth straight quarter of slower growth. Data in the current third quarter have remained weak as the slack global economy dents demand for exports and domestic activity has been sluggish.