Industrial production down for third straight month in January

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for January 201l stood at 186.3, slightly higher than the level of 183.4 registered in December last year The Dollar Business Bureau

The contraction in industrial production in January was mainly due to a huge drop of 20.4% in capital goods output in January against a growth of 12.4% in 2015

India’s industrial output registered a contraction of 1.5% in January this year, third-time in a row since November when the output had fallen by 3.2% year-on-year. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for January 201l stood at 186.3, slightly higher than the level of 183.4 registered in December last year. The Cumulative growth during April – December 2015-16 was 2.7%, down from April-December 2015-16 of 3.1%. The total growth during the corresponding period of previous year stood at 2.7%. “Ten out of the 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown negative growth during the month of January 2016 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year,” Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation said in a statement on Friday. Among the 22 industry groups monitored by the government, electrical machinery and apparatus witnessed the sharpest decline of 50.3% in January over -44.9% in December, followed by publishing, printing & reproduction of recorded media (12.7%) and Medical, precision & optical instruments, watches and clocks (11.5%). On the other hand, office, accounting & computing machinery recorded the highest positive growth of 41%, followed by radio, TV and communication equipment & apparatus (22.4%) and furniture (16.3%). Items that witnessed maximum negative growth in January over the corresponding month of previous year include cable, rubber insulated (-87.8%), aluminum foils (-65%), polythene bags including HDPE & LDPE bags (-51.6%), grinding wheels (-35.1%), antibiotics & its preparations (-26.5%) and purified terephthalic acid (-24.7%). On the whole, some top contributors to positive trend were wood furniture (66.8%), ship building & repairs (55.5%), woollen carpets (45.0%), polypropylene (37.8%), paraxylene (37.7%), propylene (32.8%) and telephone instruments including mobile phone and accessories (26.6%). The contraction in January was primarily due to a huge drop in capital goods output, which shrank by 20.4% January as against a growth of 12.4% a year ago. Expressing concern over the continuous fall in the country’s industrial outputs, FICCI Secretary General A Didar Singh said, “The delay in the recovery of manufacturing is going to impact the overall economic growth. There is a need for addressing the issue of ease of doing business in a comprehensive manner that would pull the investments into manufacturing.” “We hope to see further rate reduction in the forthcoming monetary policy that can stimulate demand and investments in the economy to support manufacturing growth,” Singh said.

March 12, 2016 | 04:10pm IST

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The Dollar Business Bureau - Mar 12, 2016 10:35 IST

Industrial production down for third straight month in January

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