IIP - ECONOMY

News: India’s core sector growth slows to 0.1% in October

 

What's in the news?

       India’s eight core sector's output growth virtually flattened in October, stumbling to just 0.1% from 7.8% in September, with cement and refinery products slipping into contraction and electricity generation rising just 0.4%.

 

Key takeaways:

       In what analysts reckoned was the weakest core sector's performance since February 2021, partly driven by base effects, steel output rose 4% in October, reflecting the slowest growth since this July, while coal and fertilizer production grew 3.6% and 5.4%, respectively.

       Cement production fell 4.3% compared with October 2021 and was also 2.4% below the September 2022 output.

       Coal, fertilizers, cement and electricity had clocked double-digit output growth in September.

       The Index of Core Industries released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry, which constitutes about 40% of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was unchanged month-on-month at 138, signaling a flat sequential trend as well.

       Natural gas production shrank for the fourth successive month, by 4.2% in October, the sharpest decline in at least 12 months.

       Crude oil output dipped for the fifth month in a row, but the contraction was the lowest in four months at 2.2%.

 

IIP:

       IIP is a composite indicator measuring changes in the volume of production of a basket of industrial products over a period, with respect to a chosen base period.

       It is compiled and published monthly by the National Statistical Office (NSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

       It is a composite indicator that measures the growth rate of industry groups classified under:

       Broad sectors, namely, Mining, Manufacturing, and Electricity.

       Use-based sectors, namely Basic Goods, Capital Goods, and Intermediate Goods.

       Base Year for IIP is 2011-2012.

 

Significance of IIP:

       It is used by government agencies including the Ministry of Finance, the Reserve Bank of India, etc, for policy-making purposes.

       IP is the only measure on the physical volume of production.

       It forms a crucial input for compilation of Gross Value Added (GVA) of the manufacturing sector in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on a quarterly basis.

       IIP remains extremely relevant for the calculation of the quarterly and advance GDP estimates.

       It is also used extensively by financial intermediaries, policy analysts and private companies for various analytical purposes.

 

Eight Core Sectors:

       These comprise 40.30% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

       The eight core sector industries in decreasing order of their weightage: Refinery Products> Electricity> Steel> Coal> Crude Oil> Natural Gas> Cement> Fertilizers.