Index of improved performance…industrial output rises 1.4% in April

After three straight months of decline, the health of the Indian industry appears to be slowly but surely improving, as the impact of the series of rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and three stimulus packages by the Government picks up pace. Output at India's factories, mines and power utilities grew by 1.4% in April this year as against a growth of 6.2% in the same month last year, the Central Statistical Organisation said on Friday. The CSO revised March's sharp contraction of 2.3% to a decline of 0.75%. With this, the revised annual growth for the year ended March 31, 2009 now stands at 2.6% versus the previous estimate of 2.4%. In the previous financial year (2007-08), the industrial output had expanded by 8.5%.

Among the three main constituents of the IIP, Electricity has done exceedingly well in April with an expansion of 7.1% as against 1.4% in April 2008, while Manufacturing grew by 0.7% versus 6.7% and Mining output rose by 3.8% compared to 6.1%. A small disappointment is with the Capital Goods sub-segment, which witnessed a decline of 1.3% in April versus an impressive growth of 12.4%, while the Intermediate Goods grew by 7.1% as against 3.1%, and Basic Goods rose by 4.6% compared to 4%.

The overall Consumer Goods space shrank by 4.7% against 8.5% growth in the same month a year earlier, while output of Non-durable Goods fell sharply by 10.47% versus 10%, and Consumer Durables growth came in at 16.9% compared to 3.2%.

As many as 11 out of the 17 industry groups showed a positive growth during April 2009 compared to the corresponding month of the previous year. The industry group ‘Wood & Wood Products' showed the highest growth of 31.4%, followed by 12.6% in ‘Wool, Silk & Man-made Fibre Textiles’ and 10.2% in ‘Non-Metallic Mineral Products’. On the other hand, the industry group ‘Food Products’ showed a negative growth of 34.4% followed by a drop of 12.4% in ‘Leather & Leather & Fur Products‘ and a fall of 5.1% in ‘Other Manufacturing Industries’.