ENERGY consumption in China weakened last month because of slowing economic growth, according to the China Electricity Council.

Electricity use for the first nine months rose 9.67 percent to 2.627 trillion kilowatt hours from a year earlier. But the consumption growth rate was down from 10.19 percent from January through to August. Industry, which accounts for 76 percent of power usage, reported it used 9.31 percent more power in the first three quarters than the period a year earlier. The growth rate was 7.47 percentage points lower than last year.