IIP up 11.8% in October

Belying expectations of slowdown, manufacturing-led industrial growth leapfrogged to 11.8 per cent in October from 4.5 per cent a year ago.

The manufacturing sector, which has a overwhelming weightage in the Index of Industrial Production, saw an impressive growth of 13.3 per cent during the month, up from a mere 3.8 per cent during October 2006.

However, the mining and electricity showed a decline in growth to 3.7 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively. The two vital segments of the industry had shown growth of 5.9 per cent and 9.7 per cent respectively during last year, according to figures released on Wednesday.

Finance Minister P Chidanmbaram said on Wednesday the outlook for industrial production is encouraging though it is still slightly lower for the April-October period compared to last year's figures for the same period last year.

"(Industrial production) outlook is encouraging. April-October figure is till slighlty lower than last year's figures for the same period," he said.

The cumulative industrial growth from April-October period was marginally down to 9.7 per cent, from 10.1 per cent during the corresponding period last year.

As regards the sectoral performance for the seventh-month period, manufacturing grew by 10.4 per cent (11.1 per cent during the same period last year), mining sector by 4.8 per cent (3.6 per cent) and electricity by 7.2 per cent (7.1 per cent).

The use-based classification of the IIP revealed that capital goods segment recorded a robust growth of 20.5 per cent during October as compared to a low growth of 6.5 per cent during the corresponding month last year.