12 Sep 2008 1:00 PM

IIP rises by 7.1% in July 2008

Manufacturing sector growth improves to 7.5%

The Index of Industrial Production data released by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme reflects a 7.1 per cent rise in July 2008 as compared to the 8.3 per cent rise in the same month a year ago. Although lower than the year-ago, the growth in July 2008 was much better than that reported in the first three months of 2008-09. It pulled up the cumulative growth in the IIP for April-July 2008 to 5.7 per cent.

The IIP of manufacturing sector grew by 7.5 per cent in July 2008 as compared to the 8.8 per cent growth clocked in July 2007. The mining & quarrying output grew by five per cent, while the growth in electricity generation accelerated to 4.5 per cent from an average of two per cent in the first three months of 2008-09. Cumulative production numbers during April-July 2008 showed a 6.1 per cent, 4.5 per cent and 2.6 per cent growth for the manufacturing sector, mining & quarrying and electricity, respectively.

The use-based classification shows a major improvement in production of capital goods to 21.9 per cent in July from an average of 6.5 per cent in the first three months of 2008-09. While basic goods production reported a growth of 5.9 per cent, that of consumer goods clocked a growth of 7.3 per cent. Growth in production of intermediate goods, however, remained subdued at 1.6 per cent.

Manasi Swamy
smanasi@cmie.com