Power consumption rose by 1.5 per cent in the first 10 days of April, after a 4.2 per cent fall in March and a 10.1 per cent drop in February, according to an online press briefing by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s state planner, on Monday.

China’s electricity consumption has long been a closely-watched indicator since Premier Li Keqiang named it as one of three more trustworthy gauges of economic growth than official gross domestic product numbers, in a leaked conversation with a US official that took place in 2007.

The other indices he mentioned were railway cargo freight and bank loans disbursed, the recent performances of which are contrasting.

Other metrics including spending and transport remain sluggish compared with the same periods last year, emphasising the challenges faced in restarting economies once they have been closed, but also in encouraging people to go out and spend money.

In the week ending on Friday, the average overall passenger trips made nationwide by rail, road, waterway and air was down 58.2 per cent from a year earlier, according to Ministry of Transport data cited in a Nomura research note.

In big cities, metro trips were also severely down on a year ago in the seven days ending on Sunday, by 39.7 per cent in Shanghai, 46.2 per cent in Guangzhou and 66.4 per cent in Beijing. Coal consumption was down 10.4 per cent in the week ending on Sunday, Nomura research showed.

In the week ending on Saturday, the level of opening among restaurants was 12.9 per cent from January 1, according to data from Beijing Duolaidian Information Technology, which covers 10 per cent of China’s total transactions. However, the research note showed that revenue was down 58.5 per cent from the start of the year.

“Retail activity still appears sluggish. The crisis has highlighted the number of poor people in China and the extent of the inequality that has emerged during four decades of growth,” wrote TS Lombard analysts in a note. “Indeed, one survey found that one-fifth of Chinese households could survive for no longer than two to three months without any income, while 40 per cent could not make it past three months.”

The overall trend towards reopening is positive, but slow. The initial breakneck speed of recovery has been replaced by incremental progress.

“The vast majority of businesses in China have at least turned the lights back on – with 98 per cent of large companies having resumed operations,” read the National Business Activity Index, compiled by research firm Trivium, as of Thursday.

“Twenty nine provinces are reporting full resumption rates for large businesses. These provinces account for 95.2 per cent of [gross domestic product]. That said, capacity utilisation at many of these companies is still closer to 80 per cent of normal levels, with many far below that.”

The index showed that industrial enterprises are operating at around 83 per cent of normal activity levels, up from 75.9 per cent a month earlier.

Small businesses “are coming back to life”, with Trivium estimating that on average nationwide, they are running at 82.6 per cent of capacity, compared to 76.8 per cent two weeks ago.

Yan Pengcheng, a director at the NDRC, said the rebound in power generation over the first half of April suggested a return to normality in China’s economy, after a period that “does not have historical comparisons” in the first quarter.

Yang Kun, executive vice-chairman of the China Electricity Council, added that electricity consumption in the “full month of April is expected to achieve positive growth”, while in the second quarter it could “rebound by about 9 percentage points from the first quarter,” he told the state-run Economic Information Daily on Monday.

Additional reporting by Orange Wang