BEIJING, May 19 -- China's industrial production continued to see stable growth in April as the country's economic performance held steady against external headwinds.

China's value-added industrial output expanded 6.1 percent year on year in April, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Monday.

The manufacturing sector saw its value-added output climb 6.6 percent year on year last month, with that of equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing up by 9.8 percent and 10 percent, respectively, according to the official data.

In the first four months of this year, the country's industrial output gained 6.4 percent compared to a year ago, the data showed.

The industrial output is used to measure the activity of large enterprises each with an annual main business turnover of at least 20 million yuan (about 2.78 million U.S. dollars).

With effective policy support, the industrial sector has maintained relatively rapid expansion this year, making solid progress in high-end, intelligent and green transformation, NBS spokesperson Fu Linghui told a press conference on Monday.

Monday's data showed the production of 3D printing equipment, industrial robots and new energy vehicles surged 60.7 percent, 51.5 percent and 38.9 percent year on year in April, respectively. In the first quarter of this year, the country's industrial profits amounted to nearly 1.51 trillion yuan, up by 0.8 percent from the same period in 2024.

Despite the positive trend, Fu cautioned that some enterprises still face difficulties in operations and called for more efforts to expand domestic demand and implement supportive policies to foster innovation-driven development.