Oct Industrial Growth Up 11.8%

Belying expectations of slowdown, manufacturing-led industrial growth leapfrogged to 11.8 per cent in October from 4.5 per cent a year ago. The manufacturing sector, which has a overwhelming weightage in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), saw an impressive growth of 13.3 per cent during the month, up from a mere 3.8 per cent during October 2006.

However, the mining and electricity showed a decline in growth to 3.7 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively. The two vital segments of the industry had shown growth of 5.9 per cent and 9.7 per cent respectively during last year, according to the official figures. Finance Minister P Chidambaram said the outlook for industrial production is encouraging though it is still slightly lower for the April-October period compared to last year''s figures for the same period last year.