BEIJING, July 14 -- China's power consumption rose at a slower pace last month because of weakening demand from heavy industries.

Power use in the second-largest energy consuming nation increased about 14 percent in June to 352 billion kilowatt-hours, the National Energy Administration said today on its website. That compares with growth of about 21 percent in May.

Today's data follows weaker June readings for manufacturing indexes and a measure of the services industry after the government cracked down on property speculation. Goldman Sachs Group Inc earlier this month reduced its 2010 growth forecast for the Chinese economy to 10.1 percent from 11.4 percent.

"The power numbers show a slight slowdown, primarily because of slower manufacturing in China," Dave Dai, an analyst at the Daiwa Institute of Research, said by telephone from Hong Kong.

The nation's January-June power consumption jumped 22 percent to 2.01 trillion kilowatt-hours, the administration said. China started operating 33.83 gigawatts of hydro and coal-fired power plants in the first half, it said.