Growth rate of eight core industries falls to 2.6% in December 2012

The growth rate of eight core industries declined to 2.6 per cent in December 2012 from 4.9 per cent in the year-ago period due to a drop in the production of coal, natural gas and fertiliser.

The cumulative expansion of the eight industries -- crude oil, natural gas, cement, coal, electricity, steel, petroleum refinery products and fertilisers -- was down at 3.3 per cent in April-December 2012 against 4.8 per cent in the same period previous year, according to government data.

The eight industries have a weightage of 37.9 per cent in the overall Index of Industrial Production (IIP). Production of natural gas and coal contracted by 14.9 per cent and 0.2 per cent, respectively, in the month under review. Fertiliser output too shrunk by 3.8 per cent against 0.8 per cent growth in December 2011.

Steel and electricity production slowed to 5.2 per cent and 4.4 per cent, respectively, in the reported period against 10.2 per cent and 8.9 per cent, respectively, in the year-ago period.Cement output slowed to 3.9 per cent from 13.6 per cent in December 2011.

However, crude oil and petroleum refinery output grew by 1 per cent and 5 per cent against the fall of 5.5 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively, in December 2011. The growth of eight core sector industries had declined to 1.8 per cent in November 2012.