Growth in core industries slows down to 2% in March

02 May 2012 Evaluate

Growth in the eight core industries' slowed down to 2% in March as against 6.5% in the same month last year reflecting a slowdown in the economy. For the entire fiscal April- March 2012, the core industries grew by 4.3% compared to 6.6% in 2010-11. The numbers have confirmed everyone’s worst fears and show that growth has not revived in the economy.

The eight industries - crude oil, petroleum refinery products, natural gas, fertilisers, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel - have a weightage of 37.9% in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

Crude oil and natural gas have been the worst performing sectors with production contracting by 2.9% and 10.1% in March, respectively. Crude oil production had grown by 12.1% while natural gas output had declined by 10.6% in March 2012.

Electricity, steel and fertiliser output slowed down by 2.1%, 2.3% and 1.5% respectively, in the month under review compared to 7.6%, 12% and 3.9% respectively in March 2011.

Petroleum refinery output too slowed down by 1.6% compared to 8.5% in March 2011. However, coal and cement output grew by 6.8% and 7.1%, respectively. In February, the eight infrastructure industries grew by 6.8% in February after a dismal performance of 0.5% a month ago.

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