Indian industrial output grows 13.8 pct in July

India's industrial production witnessed 13.8 percent of year-on-year increase in July, much higher than 7.7 percent of economists' projections, said a release by the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation Friday.

The robust growth snaps the deceleration in previous two months and restores double-digit growth from 7.1 percent growth in June.

Kaushik Basu, chief adviser with Indian Ministry of Finance, said there are no signs of slowdown in industrial output growth a day before the announcement of the data in July.

It is expected that the upbeat growth numbers together with 8.8 percent growth of GDP on the second quarter of 2010 will provide more grounds for the Indian central bank to extend gradual hike of interest rates to curb inflation.

The mining, manufacturing and electricity sectors grew 9.7 percent, 15 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, in July, according to the release.

Notably, the sector of machinery and equipment excluding transport equipment recorded fastest growth of 49.4 percent among 17 industry sections with wood and furniture as well as beverage and tobacco down 9.4 percent and 2.1 percent.

Capital, intermediary and basic goods sectors climbed 63 percent, 9.1 percent and 5.1 percent respectively in the period, regaining growth momentum.

Additionally, consumer goods maintained 6.7 percent of increase with 22.1 percent growth of consumer durables and 0.5 percent growth of consumer non-durables.

The Indian government will release the data of headline inflation of August and the central bank is scheduled to unveil its first inter-quarter policy review on Sept. 16 with possible increase of key interest rates.

Source: Xinhua