Industrial growth drops to 7% in JulyBS Reporter / New Delhi September 13, 2007Industrial growth slowed sharply this July, providing further evidence of a moderation in economic activity on account of a tight monetary policy and a perceptible slowdown in consumer spending, according to statistics released today by the government.The index of industrial production rose 7.1% in July, as against 13.2% in July 2006. This has been the slowest growth in the index in the last nine months. It had slumped to 4.4% last October. For the first four months of the current fiscal, industrial growth was 9.6%, down from 11.1% in the same period last year.Manufacturing was the key reason for the sharp slowdown in July, with sectoral growth shrinking to 7.2% as against 14.3% in the same month in 2006. Within manufacturing, the sharpest fall was recorded in the consumer durables segment, which saw a decline of 3.2% in production as against 16.1% growth in the same month last year.Four other manufacturing sectors
