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Power use accelerates as demand recovers

China's electricity consumption rose at a faster pace in March as economic activity and residential demand picked up, data from the country's top economic regulator showed. Power consumption rose 5.6 percent year-on-year last month, reaching 476.2 billion kilowatt hours, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. The growth accelerated by 1.6 percentage points from February and improved markedly from a 2.2 percent contraction in March last year. For the first quarter of 2016, power use increased 3.2 percent year-on-year to 1.35 trillion kwh, with the growth rate up 2.4 percentage points from the same period of last year.