IIP Continues to Disappoint, Divergence with Industrial GDP to Continue

The continued dismal performance of factory output, particularly in manufacturing, in the run-up to the festival season in October 2016 is a clear pointer that a recovery is nowhere in sight, says India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra). The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) grew at a marginal 0.7% yoy in September 2016 and negative 0.1% yoy for 1HFY17.

Although the broad trend shown by the IIP data reflects the state of affairs prevailing in the industrial sector in India, these numbers need to be taken with a pinch of salt. The old base of 2004-2005 for IIP broadly reflects the corporate mood; but it is somewhere missing the point by not capturing the output getting generated in the new industrial/ manufacturing segments. This was clearly reflected in the dichotomy witnessed in the IIP and the industrial gross valued added data for 1QFY17. So maybe it is also the time to not read too much into the IIP data with 2004-2005 base and wait for the IIP data with 2011-2012 base to make full sense of the industrial output trend.

 

The consumer durables sector has sustained positive growth rates since June 2015. This was to be reflected in improved performance in manufacturing prior to the start of the festival season. However, although consumer durables clocked robust growth of 14% yoy in September 2016 and 7.6% yoy in 1HFY17, this has not resulted in a boost in manufacturing output. Manufacturing output grew at 0.9% yoy in September 2016.

At the use-base level, capital goods output contracted 21.6% yoy in September 2016 against a contraction of 22.1% yoy in the previous month. Capital goods output contracted 21.4% during 1HFY17, which serves to reinforce the lack of investment demand in the economy already evident from monthly numbers. Cable, rubber insulated once again pulled down capital goods growth (negative 3% contribution to overall IIP); this sector has been very volatile and in the past also was responsible for a sharp contraction in capital goods output. The primary reason for this has been the small number for respondents/factories and the long turnaround time of production which are recognised as the output. Basic and intermediate goods growth came in at low single digit levels. Consumer non-durables growth, although positive after two consecutive months of negative growth, came in at a negligible 0.1% in September 2016.

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