Growth of India's February industrial output inches lower

Growth of India's February industrial output inches lower

Manufacturing at a Tata Motors facility. (Photo: Tata Motors/Instagram)

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) India's industrial output marginally declined in February to 7.13 per cent from a rise of 7.39 per cent in January 2018 and a mere growth of 1.2 per cent in the corresponding period of last year.

As per the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Thursday, the sequential slowdown in factory output was mainly on account of lower production in the mining sector.

However, on a year-on-year basis, the manufacturing sector expanded by a healthy 8.7 per cent, while the mining sector's output dipped by (-) 0.3 per cent and the sub-index of electricity generation increased by 4.5 per cent.

"The General Index for the month of February 2018 stands at 127.7, which is 7.1 per cent higher as compared to the level in the month of February 2017," said the CSO report on the "Quick Estimates" of Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for February.

"The cumulative growth for the period April-February 2017-18 over the corresponding period of the previous year stands at 4.3 per cent."

Among the six use-based classification groups, the output of primary goods which has the highest weightage of 34.04 grew by 3.7 per cent. The output of intermediate goods which has the second highest weightage rose by 3.3 per cent.

Similarly, consumer non-durables's output edged-higher. It rose by 7.4 per cent and that of consumer durables by 7.9 per cent.

In addition, infrastructure or construction goods' output increased by 12.6 per cent and that of capital goods by 20 per cent.

"In terms of industries, fifteen out of the twenty three industry groups (asper 2-digit NIC-2008) in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during the month of February 2018 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year," the CSO said.

--IANS

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