BEIJING — China's raw coal output dropped 0.9 percent year-on-year to 330 million metric tons last month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Oct 18.

The September output represented a 1.8 percent decrease compared with the same period in 2019, the NBS said.

The country imported 32.88 million tons of coal in September, up 76 percent year-on-year.

In the January-September period, China produced 2.93 billion tons of raw coal, up 3.7 percent year-on-year, or up 3.6 percent from the same period in 2019.

In the past nine months, China imported 230.4 million tons of coal, down 3.6 percent year-on-year.