Consumer durables sector hit hard, growth falls to minus 3.1%

TNN / Mar 13, 2008, 00:07 IST

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With overall industrial growth going down, consumer durables sctor registered a decline in output in January this year compared with the same month in 2007.

Consumer durables sector hit hard, growth falls to minus 3.1%

NEW DELHI: With overall industrial growth going down, consumer durables sctor registered a decline in output in January this year compared with the same month in 2007. With a negative rate of 3.1% for the month, this sector seems to be going through a really bad slump. The 10-month growth rate for consumer durables is also minus 1.7%.
Consumer non-durables �� fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) �� proved to be the silver lining for the second month running, with a growth rate of 10.1% in January pulling up the 10-month figure to 8.6%.As a result, consumer goods as a whole grew by 7% in January and 5.9% during April-January.
Within the overall index, manufacturing growth was the least dismal at 5.9% in January (9.2% for April-January), while mining & quarrying registered 1.8% (4.6%) and electricity generation grew by 3.3% (6.3%).
Within the manufacturing sector, trends across specific industries are widely divergent. Non-transport machinery, for instance, saw an output decline of 3.8% in January this year over January 2007. Wood and wood products was another industry that registered a negative growth rate for the latest month.

At the other end of the spectrum, food products, beverages and tobacco all saw growth rates either at double digit levels or close to 10%. Cotton textiles grew at barely 3.1% in January and a somewhat better 4.5% for the first 10 months of the financial year.
Commenting on data available for April-November, this year��s Economic Survey had cautioned that the production of cotton textiles may have been affected considerably by the recent appreciation of rupee against US dollar.

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