India’s industrial production growth slipped to a four-month low of 2% in June, mainly due to poor performance of mining and manufacturing sectors, according to government data.
Factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had expanded by 7% in June 2018.
The previous low in IIP growth was in February 2019, when it had inched up 0.2% per cent. Thereafter, IIP grew at 2.7% in March, 4.3% in April and 4.6% in May this year.
According to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, industrial output grew at 3.6% in April-June quarter this fiscal, down from 5.1% growth a year ago.
There was a slowdown in the manufacturing sector, which grew at 1.2% in June 2019 as compared to 6.9% a year ago. Capital goods segment, which is a barometer of investment, saw a contraction of 6.5% in June compared to 9.7% growth a year ago. Mining growth dropped to 1.6% in June from 6.5% in the corresponding month of the last fiscal.
The expansion in power generation sector stood at 8.2%, compared to 8.5% earlier. As per use-based classification, primary goods segment grew 0.5%, intermediate goods 12.4% and infrastructure/construction goods (-) 1.8% in June 2019.
Consumer durables and non-durables recorded growth of (-) 5.5% and 7.8%, respectively.
In terms of industries, 8 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during June as compared to the same month a year ago.
The industry group ‘Manufacture of basic metals’ showed the highest growth of 17.7%, followed by 16.5% in food products and 10.3% in tobacco products.
On the other hand, the industry group ‘Manufacture of paper and paper products’ witnessed the highest negative growth of (-) 19.9%, followed by (-) 14.3% in ‘Manufacture of furniture’ and (-) 13.9% in ‘Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers’.