India's Industrial production eases to 1.7 % in January

New Delhi: India's industrial output slipped to 1.7 percent in January as compared to 2.4 percent in December.

Meanwhile, the country's annual retail inflation in February rose to a four-month high of 2.57 percent, after easing to a 19-month low of 1.97 percent in January, government data showed on Tuesday.

The cumulative growth for the period April-January 2018-19 over the corresponding period of the previous year stands at 4.4 percent, official data showed.

The industry group ‘Manufacture of furniture’ has shown the highest negative growth of (-) 12.0 percent followed by (-) 9.0 percent in ‘Manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment’ and (-) 6.4 in ‘Manufacture of paper and paper products’.

The growth rates in January are 1.4 percent in Primary goods, (-) 3.2 percent in Capital goods, (-) 3.0 percent in Intermediate goods and 7.9 percent in Infrastructure/ Construction Goods. The Consumer durables and Consumer non-durables have recorded growth of 1.8 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.

The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of January stand 3.9 percent, 1.3 percent and 0.8 percent as compared to January last year.

The cumulative growth in these three sectors during April-January 2018-19 over the corresponding period of 2017-18 has been 3.2 percent, 4.4 percent and 5.9 percent respectively.

In terms of industries, eleven out of the twenty three industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during the month of January.

On the other hand, the industry group ‘Manufacture of food products’ has shown the highest positive growth of 17.0 percent followed by 16.4 percent in ‘Manufacture of wearing apparel’ and 10.4 percent in ‘Printing and reproduction of recorded media’.