BackCement, coal boost core sector growth
Cement, coal boost core sector growth
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New Delhi: Abuoyant performance by cement, coal and electricity sectors pushed up the overall growth in the six core infrastructure industries to 9% in August, compared with 6.6% in the same month a year ago.
Cement sector led the performance chart for August, recording a robust growth of 16.2% in August from a mere 2.9% in the same month last year.
Coal and electricity, with 8.7% growth each, were the other sectors which contributed to the improvement in the key infrastructure industries. They have a weightage of 26.68% in the overall Index for industrial production (IIP).
Coal production improved from 0.6% while electricity moved from 4.1% in August 2006. However, there was a decline in growth of crude petroleum to 6.4% from 12% and petroleum refinery products to 8.2% from 12.1%.
Steel output was marginally down by one percentage point to 8.5%. Against improvement in August, there was a decline in growth of the six sectors during the April-August period of the current fiscal year to 6.6% from 8.3% in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
“As infrastructure industries contribute significantly to the IIP, the overall industrial production numbers, to be released in a week’s time, are likely to show better performance," an analyst working with an industry chamber said.
On a sequential basis, the sectors have shown improvement since June this year. The growth rate in that month was 3.8%, which moved up to 6.8% in July and further to 9% in August.
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