BEIJING — China's raw coal output posted rapid expansion in July, official data showed.

The country produced 370 million metric tons of raw coal last month, surging 16.1 percent year-on-year. The growth in July was 0.8 percentage points higher than that of the previous month, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the first seven months of the year, the output was 11.5 percent higher than a year earlier at 2.56 billion tons, said the bureau.

China's coal imports stood at 138.52 million tons in the Jan-July period, down 18.2 percent from the same period of 2021, the data also showed.