China's electricity consumption in August grew at its most sluggish pace in at least two years on the back of weaker industrial activity, providing further confirmation that the world's second-largest economy is slowing.

Electricity consumption in August totaled 449.5 billion kilowatt-hours, up 3.6% from a year earlier, the National Energy Administration said in a statement Friday.

The growth rate--the lowest since at least August 2010---slowed from 4.5% in July and remained well below an average increase of 11.7% in 2011 and 12% in 2010, government data showed.

The anemic growth in August was mainly due to a decline in power use by the agricultural sector, which fell 2.0% from a year earlier, and lower power use by industries, which grew just 1.1% on year, according to the data. Industrial demand makes up 70% of China 's total power consumption.

Growth in China's value-added industrial output slowed to 8.9% in August from a year earlier, the slowest since May 2009 and down from a 9.2% on-year increase in July.

China 's slower power consumption growth was also broadly in line with weakening GDP growth, which in the second quarter was 7.6%, its slowest pace since the first quarter of 2009.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics this week showed that August electricity output rose 2.7% from a year earlier to 437.3 billion kWh amid slowing growth in industrial activity.

However, consumption is expected to rise 7% to 5.1 trillion kWh in 2012, the state-controlled Xinhua news agency said previously, quoting an official with the State Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Electricity demand isn't always a precise indicator of economic growth due to fluctuations in household demand.

However, Vice Premier Li Keqiang, widely considered the leading contender to become the nation's next prime minister, said in 2007 that electricity consumption was a more reliable indicator of economic growth in his province of Liaoning than gross domestic product data, which he considered "man-made" and therefore unreliable, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.

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