India's industrial production surges 7.5% in January 2018

Cumulative industrial production growth at 4.1% in April-January FY2018

India's industrial production (base year 2011-12=100) continued to record a strong growth for the third straight month at 7.5% in January 2018 over January 2017. The manufacturing sector's production surged 8.7% in January 2018, supporting overall growth in industrial production. The mining output growth slowed down to 0.1% in January 2018, while the electricity generation growth accelerated to five-month high of 7.6% in January 2018, contributing to the improvement in overall industrial production growth in January 2018.

As per the use-based classification, primary goods output rose at higher pace of 5.8% in January 2018 over a year ago, while the output of capital goods surged 14.6% in January 2018. The output of intermediate goods galloped 4.9%. The output of consumer durables moved up 8%, while that of consumer non-durable durables surged 10.5%. Further, the output Infrastructure/ construction goods also jumped 6.8% in January 2018.

In terms of industries, sixteen out of the twenty three industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during the month of January 2018 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year. The industry group other transport equipment has shown the highest positive growth of 33.1% followed by 27.8% in furniture and 26.6% in motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers. On the other hand, the industry group tobacco products has shown the highest negative growth of (-) 46.5% followed by (-) 32.4% in other manufacturing and (-) 13.2% in printing and reproduction of recorded media.

Some important item groups showing high positive growth during the current month over the same month in previous year include bodies of trucks, lorries and trailers 267.5%, steroids and hormonal preparations including anti-fungal preparations 102.9%, stainless steel utensils 89.2%,axle 58.8%, separators including decanter centrifuge 49.7%, sugar 40.9%, two-wheelers motorcycles/ scooters 37.7%, digestive enzymes and antacids incl PPI drugs 31.7%, commercial vehicles 29.8%, films of polythene, polyester, pvc & other forms of plastic 22.0% and cement- all types 21.5%.

Some important item groups that have registered high negative growth include jewellery of gold studded with stones or not (-) 73.8%, other tobacco products (-) 73.4%, hand tools incl interchangeable tools, not mechanised (-) 64.7%, bags/ pouches of HDPE/ LDPE plastic (-) 40.7%, kerosene (-) 37.3%, material handling, lifting and hoisting equipment (-) 34.3%, plastic components of packing/ closing/ bottling articles & of electrical fittings (-) 29.1%, paper of all kinds excluding newsprint (-) 28.8%, medical/ surgical accessories (-) 27.1% and printed books incl Manuals, reports, brochures, catalogs etc (-) 21.1%.

The cumulative industrial production growth has eased to 4.1% in April-January FY2018 compared with 5.0% growth in April-January FY2017. The manufacturing sector growth has moderated to 4.2% in April-January FY2018 from 4.8% growth in the corresponding period last year. The electricity generation output also rose at moderated pace of 5.3% and mining output growth eased to 2.5% in April-January FY2018.

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