Core Sector Growth Drops To 4.7% In October
Core sector growth slowed in October due to a subdued performance of cement, steel and refinery segments.
India’s eight core sectors grew at a slower pace of 4.7 percent in October, primarily due to subdued performance of cement, steel and refinery segments.
The eight infrastructure sectors – coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity – had clocked a growth of 7.1 percent in October last year. Official data released this evening showed that cement production contracted by 2.7 percent as against an expansion of 6.2 percent in October last year.
The commerce ministry has revised downwards September growth print of these eight sectors to 4.7 percent from the earlier estimate of 5.2 percent.
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- Output growth in the steel segment too slowed to 8.4 percent in the last month compared to 17.4 percent in the year- ago period.
- There was slowdown in refinery output, whose growth was 7.5 percent in October this year. This compares with 12.6 percent expansion in the same month last year.
- Electricity generation, too, was slower on an annual basis.
- The coal segment has shown significant improvement as it expanded by 3.9 percent compared to a decline of 1.9 percent in the year-ago period.
- The fertiliser sector grew by 3 percent as against 0.7 percent last year.
- Crude oil production and natural gas output also showed an improvement.
Cumulatively, the growth in the eight core sectors slowed down to 3.5 percent as against 5.6 percent in the comparable period of the last fiscal. The eight core industries constitute 40.27 percent of weight of items in the index of industrial production.