IIP expands at 7.5% in January 2018

According to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), India’s factory output, measured by Index of Industrial Production (IIP) recorded overall 7.5% growth in January 2018, indicating early signs of industrial revival.
Factory output grew at 7.1% in December 2017, before hitting 25-month high of 8.4% in November 2017. The cumulative IIP growth for period of April-January over corresponding period of previous year was 4.1%.

Key Facts

Manufacturing sector: It increased to 8.7% in January 2018 as compared to 8.5% in December 2017. It was led by improved production of consumer durables and continued double-digit growth of consumer non-durables as well as capital goods.
Mining output: It recorded growth of 0.1% in January 2018 compared to 1.2% in December 2017.
Electricity generation: It recorded 7.6% growth in January 2018, as compared 4.4% growth in December 2017.
Capital goods output: It is a barometer of investment and considered as proxy to measure private sector investment activity. It was 14.6% in January 2018 compared to 16.4% in December 2017.
Consumer durables output: It was 8% in January 2018 as compared meagre 0.9% rise in December 2017.
Consumer non-durables production: It recorded 10.5% growth in January 2018 from 16.5% in December 2017.

Index of Industrial Production (IIP)

The IIP is composite indicator that measures short-term changes in volume of production of basket of industrial products during given period with respect to chosen base period. It is compiled and published monthly by Central Statistical Organization (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
Base year: The CSO had revised the base year of the IIP from 2004-05 to 2011-12 in May 2017 to capture structural changes in the economy and improves the quality and representativeness of the indices. The revised IIP (2011-12) reflects the changes in the industrial sector and also aligns it with base year of other macroeconomic indicators like the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Sector wise items and weightages: It covers 407 item groups. Sector wise, the items included falls into 3 categories viz. Manufacturing (405 items), Mining (1 items) & Electricity (1 item). The weights of the three sectors are 77.63%, 14.37%, 7.9% respectively. The revised 8 core Industries have combined weightage of 40.27% in IIP.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2018