INDIA BUSINESS WORLD OCTOBER (1st - 20th) 2007
The Month that was ...
CORE SECTOR GROWTH RISES TO 9% IN AUG
After a brief lull, core sector growth is revving up again. Led by a robust performance in cement, coal and power, the core sector posted a 9% growth in August 2007 against 6.6% in the corresponding period last year. However, there was a decline in growth of the six sectors during the April-August period of 2007-08 to 6.6% compared to 8.3% in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.
Cement sector led the performance chart recording a robust growth of 16.2% in August 2007 compared to 2.9% in the year-ago period. Both coal and power grew by 8.7%. Coal and power have a weightage of 26.68% in the overall index for industrial production. Coal production was dismal at 0.6% in August 2006 while power was crawling at 4.1%. There was a decline in growth of crude petroleum to 6.4% compared to 12% the previous year. In the case of petroleum refinery products, growth declined to 8.2 % in August compared to 12.1% in the year-ago period. Steel output was also marginally down but still managed 8.5% growth.
"As infrastructure industries contribute significantly to the IIP, the overall industrial production numbers, to be released in a week, are likely to show better performance," an analyst said.
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