China’s industrial economy recorded strong growth in November, fuelling expectations that policymakers will shift their focus to controlling debt growth and strengthening the case for the US Federal Reserve to tighten monetary policy amid a revival of inflation.

After a slow start to the year, a robust property market and government infrastructure spending have boosted China’s manufacturing sector in the second half, calming global worries about a hard landing for the world’s largest economy. President Xi Jinping told top Communist party leaders last week that he was confident of meeting the economic growth target of at least 6.5 per cent for 2016.

The statistics bureau said on Tuesday that electricity production, which sceptics of China’s economic data view as a proxy for activity in the industrial economy, grew 7 per cent in volume terms in November from a year earlier as factories revved up production. That adds credibility to figures showing 6.2 per cent annual growth in industrial output in November, accelerating from 6.1 per cent in October.