The country's industry is still in a protracted struggle for recovery and for a shift to better serve domestic consumers, according to information provided by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday.

In the first quarter, industry saw 9.5 percent value-added growth year-on-year, slower than the 10 percent seen in the previous quarter, and even slower than the 11.6 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

Economists warned that the sector's slower growth may force the country to rely more on growth driven by capital investment, resulting in an even greater challenge to its plan to rely increasingly on domestic consumption.