BEIJING, Oct. 21 (Xinhua) -- China's imports of natural gas continued fast growth in September while domestic production increased steadily, official data shows.

Imports of natural gas surged 28.3 percent year on year to 7.62 million tonnes last month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows.

The pace was 9.7 percentage points slower than the increase recorded in August. In the first nine months of this year, imported natural gas totaled 64.78 million tonnes, up 34 percent year on year.

China's imports of natural gas have seen steady growth to meet increasing domestic consumption, partly driven by government initiatives of using clean energy for winter heating instead of coal.

Natural gas output increased by 8.5 percent in September, 1.2 percentage points slower than in August, the NBS data shows.