Consumer durables pull IIP down to 6.4%

Industrial production growth nearly halved to 6.4 per cent in September this year, pulled down by a poor showing by the manufacturing sector, especially the consumer durables segment.

The Index of Industrial Production for the same month last year stood at 12 per cent. For the first half of the current fiscal (April-September 2007) too, IIP slipped to 9.2 per cent against 11.1 per cent in the corresponding period a year ago, an official release said on Monday.

During September, the manufacturing sector growth decelerated to 6.6 per cent as compared to 12.7 per cent in the same month last year.

The worst performance, however, was enacted by the consumer durables sector which reported 7.6 per cent decline in output during the month.

The index for power generation too slipped to 4.5 per cent during the month as comapred to 11.3 per cent in September 2006.

The mining sector, however, showed a positive trend at 6 per cent, improving upon the growth of 4.3 per cent recorded in the corresponding month last year.

As regards the cumulative growth, manufacturing sector output during April-September 2007 slipped to 9.7 per cent as compared to 12.3 per cent in the corresponding period last year.

Some improvement, however, was recorded in electricity and mining sectors which posted growths of 7.7 per cent and 5.3 per cent over 6.6 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively during the same period in the previous fiscal.