New Delhi, Nov. 12
A negative growth of 3.3 per cent in intermediate goods in September compared with 10 per cent in the corresponding period last year pulled down growth in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) to 4.8 per cent in September 2008 as against 7 per cent in the same month last year.
In contrast, the capital goods sector grew by 18.8 per cent and the consumer durables increased by 13.1 per cent.
The Chief Statistician, Dr Pronab Sen, told Business Line that the negative growth in intermediate goods could be on account of manufacturers of final goods expecting a slowdown in the coming months, and running down their inventories of intermediates.
MANUFACTURING GROWS
The manufacturing sector grew by 4.8 per cent during the month marking a substantial fall compared to 7.4 per cent registered in September last year.
Simultaneously, the growth in the electricity sector also decelerated marginally to 4.4 per cent as against 4.5 per cent recorded in the same month last year.
Mining output increased by 5.7 per cent in September 2008 as against 4.9 per cent in September 2007.
The overall growth in the IIP for the April-September period stood at 4.9 per cent, almost half compared to 9.5 per cent growth recorded in the first half of last fiscal.
Describing the 4.8 per cent growth as encouraging, the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, said in a statement that “after the poor results reported for the month of August 2008, the IIP for September 2008 is more encouraging.”
He, however, pointed out that “data collection must be improved and made more relevant, contemporary and universal.” In particular, the Minister pointed out that “the growth in the capital goods sector has been an impressive 18.8 per cent as against 20.9 per cent in September 2007.”
Similarly in September “the growth in consumer goods has been a satisfactory 5.6 per cent as against negative growth of 0.2 per cent in the same month last year”, he said.
Consumer non-durables grew marginally by 2.8 per cent against 2.6 per cent a year ago.
The growth in basic goods sector came down to 4.6 per cent as against 6.5 per cent during the same period last year.
Of the 17 industries, nine posted a positive growth with transport equipment and parts showing the highest growth if 16.8 per cent followed by machinery and equipment other than transport equipment at 16.1 per cent.
Beverages, tobacco and related products grew by 1.7 per cent while paper and paper products and printing grew by 8.3 per cent.
TEXTILES NEGATIVE
However, cotton textiles (-9.3), wood and wood products, furniture and fixtures (-9.7), leather and leather products (-8.6 per cent) registered a negative growth.
Apart from these, jute and other vegetable fibre textiles, textile products (including wearing apparel), basic chemicals and chemical products (except petroleum), rubber, plastic, petroleum and coal products also registered negative growth rates.
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