Manufacturing sector shows revival signs: CII survey

A survey undertaken by an industry body has revealed higher percentage of firms reporting positive growth in sales in the three month ended March 2009, compared with the immediately preceding quarter (October-December 2008).

The survey by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), a lobby group, said 70 per cent of the firms surveyed reported growth in the January-March 2009 period, compared with 66.67 per cent of companies in the period ended December 2008.

This, according to CII, shows signs of marginal recovery with a few sectors moving from negative growth to moderate growth. “While on a yearly basis the manufacturing sector has slowed down, there are some green shoots from a few sectors that have demonstrated a marginal pickup during the second half of 2008-09 when compared with the first half. These demonstrate a cautious optimism on signs of recovery,” said Chandrajit Banerjee, director general of CII.

In a survey carried out by the CII covering companies and associations that contribute around 65 per cent of the total industry output, high growth (between 10-20 per cent) was reported by 18.75 per cent of the 80 sectors for April-March 2009 as against 30.7 per cent in April-March 2008.

The sectors that moved from negative growth group to moderate growth group between the third and fourth quarter of 2008-09 are fertilisers, LDPE, HDPE, pig iron, steel and mopeds, while vanaspati sector moved from moderate group to high growth group during this period.