China produced 309 million tons of coal in August, down 2.6 percent from a year earlier, with demand weaker than expected and producers scaling back operations to minimize losses, official data showed on Sunday.

Coal production for the first eight months of the year stood at 2.41 billion tons, down 4.8 percent year-on-year, said the National Bureau of Statistics.

The industry has been struggling with a supply glut, a slowdown in major downstream sectors and government measures to reduce pollution that have encouraged the use of cleaner fuels.