Cement, steel, refinery drag down core sector growth to 4.7% in Oct.

04 December 2017

Eight core sectors grew at a slower pace of 4.7% in October, chiefly 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% in October last year.

Meanwhile, the Industry Ministry has revised downwards September growth print of these eight sectors to 4.7% from the earlier estimate of 5.2%.

Official data released Thursday showed that cement production contracted by 2.7% as against an expansion of 6.2% in October 2016.

Output growth in the steel segment too slowed to 8.4% in the last month compared with 17.4% in the year-earlier period. Similarly, there was slowdown in refinery output, whose growth was 7.5% in October this year. This compared with 12.6% expansion in the same month last year. Electricity generation, too, was slower on an annual basis.

Coal improves

Meanwhile, coal segment has shown significant improvement as it expanded by 3.9%. It had witnessed a decline of 1.9% in the year-earlier period.

The fertiliser sector grew by 3% as against 0.7% last year.

Crude oil production and natural gas output have shown improvement, too.

Cumulatively, the growth in the eight core sectors slowed down to 3.5% as against 5.6% in the comparable period of the last fiscal.

The eight core industries constitute 40.27% of weight of items in the index of industrial production (IIP).

Source: The Hindu