Core sector growth slows down to 0.9% in December

New Delhi: Growth of eight core sectors slowed down to 0.9 percent in December 2015 from 3.2 percent in the same month of previous year as production of crude oil, natural gas and steel sectors declined.

The eight core or infrastructure industries are coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilisers, steel, cement and electricity.

The December production numbers are, however, better than those in November which witnessed the worst performance in seven months with the output of eight sectors contracting by 1.3 percent.

The eight core sectors have nearly 38 percent weight in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) which gauges overall industrial output growth.

The cumulative growth of core sectors in April-December period of 2015-16 came in at 1.9 percent, lower than 5.7 percent in the first nine months of the last financial year.

According to the data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry today, crude oil, natural gas and steel recorded negative growth in December 2015.

Production of crude oil declined by 4.1 percent, natural gas by 6.1 percent and steel by 4.4 percent in the month under review. In the year ago period, the output of crude oil had declined by 1.4 percent, natural gas by 2.9 percent and steel had flat performance.

Production growth in coal, refinery products, cement and electricity generation too slowed down to 6.1 percent, 2.1 percent, 3.2 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively, from 7.5 percent, 6.1 percent, 3.8 percent and 4.8 percent in December 2014.

However, fertiliser production grew by 13.1 percent in December from (-) 1.6 percent in the same month previous year.