Capital goods, a barometer of investments, showed a sharp increase in output by 14.6 per cent in January, 2018 as against a decline of 0.6 per cent year ago.
Industrial production grow at a high rate of 7.5 per cent in January 2018 against 3.5 per cent in the year-ago month on the back of good show by manufacturing coupled with higher offtake of consumer and capital goods.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had grown at 7.1 per cent in December 2017, according to the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on Monday.
The IIP growth in January this year was mainly on account of uptick in manufacturing sector which constitutes 77.63 per cent of the index.
It grew by 8.7 per cent during the month as compared to 2.5 per cent in January 2017, showing signs of recovery in the economy.
Capital goods, a barometer of investments, showed a sharp increase in output by 14.6 per cent in January, 2018 as against a decline of 0.6 per cent year ago.
Consumer non-durable goods, which are mainly fast moving consumer goods, too showed an increase of 10.5 per cent as against a growth of 9.6 per cent.
Consumer durable goods recorded a growth rate of 8 per cent in January 2018 against a contraction of 2 per cent a year ago.
However, the mining sector saw a flat growth of 0.1 per cent compared to 8.6 per cent a year ago.
As per use-based classification, the growth rates in January 2018 over January 2017 are 5.8 per cent in primary goods, 4.9 per cent in intermediate goods and 6.8 per cent in infrastructure/ construction goods.
In terms of industries, 16 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector showed positive growth during January, 2018.
IIP grew at 4.1 per cent in April-January this fiscal as compared to 5 per cent in same period in previous financial year.
Photograph: Reuters
