)
The eight infrastructure industries, after growing at the steepest pace in a year in October came as a disappointment in November as its output contracted. The core sectors contracted 0.6% in October against 8% in September, the latest data released by Ministry of Commerce and Industries showed.
This was a four month low and in the previous year same month, the core sector industries had grown 7.8%. This was due to a contraction in half of the eight sectors which occupy almost 38% of the total Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
Electricity, grew meagerly by 1.3% in October compared to 5.6% in October last year. Cement registered growth of 1% against 6.8% in the same period last year. Coal sector which had risen at one of the fastest pace among other sectors contracted by 3.9% against 11.6% growth. Along with coal, the output of petroleum refinery products fell by 4.8% in September over a high 46.3% growth in October 2012.
The contraction in output of natural gas continued this month as well and remained at 13.6% against contraction of 14.9%. Natural gas has been contracting since December 2010. Crude oil output went down by 0.8% in this month against contraction of 0.4% in same period last year.
This set of data comes on a day when the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to an eight-month and stood at 51.3 points in November.
This has taken the overall growth rate in core sector from April-October to 2.6% this year against a high 6.8% in same period last year.
