Manufacturing sector logs steady growth in September

01 Oct 2012 Evaluate

Supported by faster output growth and rising export orders, India’s manufacturing activity growth in September held steady compared with August. Measures by the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank to revive their economies mainly pushed foreign demand for Indian goods higher. At the same time, order book volumes increased for the forty-second successive month on stronger demand, good product quality and increasing marketing. However, the report cautioned the chances of rise in inventories dampening the output growth in coming months.

According to the HSBC purchasing managers’ index (PMI), a headline index designed to measure the overall health of the manufacturing sector, expanded at steady space of 52.8 in September, unchanged from August reading. A PMI reading above 50 indicates expansion in the sector, while one below suggests decline. In a sign of relief, the new export orders sub-index, an indicator of prospective overseas business, jumped to 53.8 from 49.2 in August, thereby positing biggest rise in almost two years.

Additionally seventh successive month of growth was recorded for employment in the month of September, with payroll numbers increasing to meet stronger demand, thereby signaling expansions in marketing departments. The inflation picture, on the other hand, was a bit mixed. While input prices rose at a faster clip on the back of higher raw material and diesel prices, output prices rose somewhat less, thereby adding to the Reserve Bank of India's dilemma of boosting growth while trying to rein in stubbornly high inflation.

Since manufacturing accounts for around 15 percent of India's gross domestic product, so a slowdown would not augur well for Asia's third-largest economy, which is already languishing near its slowest pace of growth in a decade for Q1. Poor showing by the manufacturing sector pulled down the GDP growth to 5.5% in the first quarter, the decade's worst Q1 performance, against the growth figure of 8% in the corresponding period in the last fiscal. The survey, although estimates the growth in the manufacturing sector to remain subdued, but at the same has underscored the implementation of recently announced reforms to help facilitate a gradual recovery during the second half of the fiscal year.

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