Industrial Production Growth Plunges to 4-Month Low of 2% in June

New Delhi: India's industrial production growth slipped to a four-month low of 2% in June, mainly due to poor performance of mining and manufacturing sectors, according to government data released on Friday.

Factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had expanded by 7% in June 2018.

The previous low in IIP growth was in February 2019, when it had inched up 0.2%. Thereafter, IIP grew at 2.7% in March, 4.3% in April and 4.6% in May this year.

According to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, industrial output grew at 3.6% in April-June quarter this fiscal, down from 5.1% growth a year ago.

There was a slowdown in the manufacturing sector, which grew at 1.2% in June 2019 as compared to 6.9% a year ago.

Capital goods segment, which is a barometer of investment, saw a contraction of 6.5% in June compared to 9.7% growth a year ago.

Mining growth dropped to 1.6% in June from 6.5% in the corresponding month of the last fiscal.

The expansion in power generation sector stood at 8.2%, compared with 8.5% earlier.

As per use-based classification, primary goods segment grew 0.5%, intermediate goods 12.4% and infrastructure/construction goods (-) 1.8% in June 2019.

Consumer durables and non-durables recorded growth of (-) 5.5% and 7.8%, respectively.

In terms of industries, eight out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during June as compared to the same month a year ago.

The industry group 'Manufacture of basic metals' showed the highest growth of 17.7%, followed by 16.5% in food products and 10.3% in tobacco products.

On the other side, the industry group ‘Manufacture of paper and paper products' witnessed the highest negative growth of (-) 19.9%, followed by (-) 14.3% in 'Manufacture of furniture' and (-) 13.9% in 'Manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers and semi-trailers'.