China's gold output in the first five months of 2011 totalled 132.02 tonnes, up 3.67 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said on its website on Tuesday. Output for the month of May reached 28.791 tonnes, according to Reuters calculations based on official figures for the first four months.
The ministry had said on its website output for May was 8.791 tonnes. Despite repeated calls, the ministry could not be reached to clarify whether the discrepancy was due to a typographical error. China is the world's biggest gold producer, with output at 340.880 tonnes in 2010, up 8.6 percent from 2009.