BEIJING — China's cement output picked up in July as recovering economic activities drove demand for the building material, official data showed.

China produced 220 million metric tons of cement in July, up 3.6 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

In the first seven months of this year, the aggregate cement output fell 3.5 percent year-on-year to 1.22 billion tons, narrowing the drop registered in the first half of the year by 1.3 percentage points.

The MIIT data showed that the sector's total revenues declined 5.5 percent year-on-year to 510.9 billion yuan (about $74.7 billion) in the January-July period, compared with a decrease of 6.1 percent in the first half.

Its combined profits stood at 92.6 billion yuan in the first seven months of this year.