BEIJING - China's electricity regulator expects the country's power consumption growth to gain traction in 2013.

The State Electricity Regulatory Commission said Thursday that consumption nationwide will increase by 9 percent this year following a month-on-month rising streak since October, 2012.

In line with sluggish economic expansion, the country's electric energy consumption growth had slowed for two straight quarters until rebounding to 7.45 percent in the last quarter, SERC data showed.

In 2012, residential power consumption outran overall growth with a 10.7 percent year-on-year surge, while electricity usage growth in light and heavy industries dropped markedly, SERC said.

In addition, electric energy consumption in the western region expanded faster than that of central and eastern areas, data showed.

Electricity used last year grew 5.5 percent from 2011 to 4.96 trillion kilowatt hours, according to the data released earlier by the National Energy Administration.

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