India witnesses encouraging industrial output in December

[abhijitbn]

Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee on February 12, 2010, reaffirmed that the industrial output in December 2009 was encouraging and said it would have a positive impact on the economic growth numbers for India for the current fiscal. The industrial activity in the country, as indicated by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), surged by 16.8 per cent in December 2009—the fastest in 20 years—as against a lowered 0.2 per cent during the corresponding month in 2008.

The finance minister also hoped that the third quarter gross domestic product (GDP) numbers would also be encouraging as it would get reflected in the overall GDP and would push figures for the fiscal too. The Minister has begun preparations to present Budget 2010-11 on February 26. The advance growth estimates by Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) earlier in the week, pegged economic growth at 7.2 per cent for the current fiscal i.e., 2009-10. The Planning Commission Deputy Chairman, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, also said that the numbers were beyond the expected 13 per cent. He also said that the country was well positioned for next year, that is, fiscal year 2010-11 to have a growth of over 8 per cent.

Apart from industrial growth, manufacturing production too rose 18.5 per cent in December 2009 from a lowered 0.6 per cent a year earlier. The November industrial output was revised up to 11.8 per cent from 11.7 per cent. Industrial output was earlier recorded at 2.6 per cent in the 2008-09 fiscal. The cumulative industrial growth for April-December now comes to 8.6 per cent, which is more than the 3.6 per cent for the corresponding three quarters of 2008-09.

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