IIP slides further, add to growth worries

NOV 12: Adding to worries on the economic growth front, industrial production remained sluggish in September with the Index of Industrial ...

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NOV 12: Adding to worries on the economic growth front, industrial production remained sluggish in September with the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) registering a growth of 5.4 per cent during the month against a growth of 7.4 per cent in the corresponding period last year.

The Reserve Bank of India, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, NCAER and the Central Statistical Organisation have already revised the GDP growth downwards. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha who earlier disputed the slowdown also climbed down from his earlier stand and accepted the fall in growth rates.

The mining and quarrying sector continued its encouraging performance by recording a growth of 9 per cent in comparison with 5 per cent in September 1999. Performance of the manufacturing sector remained low at 5 per cent against a growth of 6.6 per cent, while electricity recorded a poor 1.9 per cent growth during the month in comparison to 16.7 per cent growth last year.

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Industrial growth during the first half of the current fiscal was 5.5 per cent with the mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors contributing 6.6 per cent, 5.6 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively. Last year, the growth rate in the same period stood at 6.4 per cent, with the mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors recording growth rates of 0.5 per cent, 6.8 per cent and 7.7 per cent respectively.

The basic goods sector recorded an increase of 5.9 per cent in September this year against a growth of 10 per cent during the same month last year. The capital goods sector experienced a negative growth of 2.7 per cent against 0.8 per cent growth in September 1999.

The growth in the intermediate goods sector was also low at 5.2 per cent against 11.9 per cent last year. The consumer goods sector recorded a higher growth of 8.2 per cent in September this year, against a growth of 2.6 per cent in the same period last year.

Within the sector, the performance of consumer durables was sharper than the consumer non-durables. While consumer durables recorded a growth of 19.4 per cent against 11 per cent last year, the growth rate of consumer non-durables in September 2000 was 4.5 per cent against a growth of 0.1 per cent in the same month last year.

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Metal products and parts, excluding machinery and equipment, have recorded a growth of 31.6 per cent in the month followed by 17.7 per cent growth for other manufacturing industries and 17.2 per cent growth in non-metallic mineral products.

On the other hand, paper & paper products and printing, publishing and allied industries have recorded a negative growth of 17.4 per cent.

Transport equipment and parts have recorded a negative growth of 11.9 per cent and wood, wood products, furniture and fixtures have registered a negative growth of 4.6 per cent.

In addition to the quick estimates of IIP for September, the indices for August have been revised once and that of June have been revised for the second and the final time based on the updated data received from the source agencies.

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While in the mining index there has been an upward revision from 119.2 to 125.4 for June 2000, there hasn’t been any significant revision in the indices for the manufacturing and electricity sectors. For August 2000, the indices of the three sectors have undergone minor revisions, an official release said.