India’s industrial production posts surprise fall in August

Industrial production in India posted a surprise fall during the month of August, remaining well below market expectations, owing to weakness in manufacturing activities.

India’s industrial production dropped 2.4 percent in July from a year ago, confounding expectations for an increase of 1.4 percent and June's revised 2 percent rise, data released by the Central Statistics Office showed Monday.

Manufacturing output declined 3.4 percent annually. Meanwhile, mining and electricity expanded 0.8 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively. During April to July, industrial production contracted 0.2 percent from the same period of last year.

In May the factory output was up 1.1 percent, while in April it took a hit of -1.4 percent. In July last year, there was a growth of 4.3 percent. Cumulatively, the growth during the first four months of this fiscal is at -0.2 percent.

However, basic goods and intermediate goods production continued to expand while consumer durables did well, registering an expansion of 5.9 percent. Twelve out of the 22 industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown negative growth during July 2016 compared to the corresponding month of the previous year.

Meanwhile, industrial production growth for June was revised downward to 1.95 percent from 2.1 percent provisional estimates released last month.