Industrial output growth remained subdued at 2.4% in December 2018 on account of contraction in the mining segment and poor show by the manufacturing sector.
Factory output as measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had grown by 7.3% in December 2017, according to the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on February 12.
The industrial growth for November 2018 was revised downwards to 0.3% from the provisional estimate of 0.5% released in January 2019.
During April-December 2018, industrial output grew at 4.6% against 3.7% in the same period of the previous fiscal.
The manufacturing sector, which constitutes 77.63% of the index, recorded a low growth of 2.7% in December as against 8.7% expansion in the year-ago month.
Mining sector production contracted by 1% in December as against 1.2% growth in December 2017.
The growth of the power sector output remained flat at 4.4% in December 2018.
Capital goods output grew at 5.9%, compared to 13.2% growth a year ago. Consumer durables output grew by 2.9% as against a growth of 2.1% in December 2017. Consumer non-durable goods growth was also low at 5.3% in December 2018 as compared to 16.8% growth in the year-ago month.
In terms of industries, 13 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector showed positive growth during December 2018.
As per use-based classification, primary goods production declined by 1.2% and intermediate goods by 1.5%.
Infrastructure/ Construction Goods grew at 10.1%.
