Economy is on recovery path – CII

However, textile machinery and wagons continued to show negative growth for the third successive quarter with pig iron recording a negativegrowth rate of 29 per cent. Consumer durables continued to propel the industrial recovery with a majority of the product segments including computer hardware clocking excellent growth of over 20 per cent.

Sales figures also showed improvement with 60 of the 75 industrial segments reporting moderate to high growth even as 50 per cent of major industrial sectors led by construction projects and multi-utility vehicles bettered their exports performance.

According to the ASCON-CII survey, production of medium and heavy commercial vehicles showed one of the highest growth rates of 63 per cent followed by sugar at 73 per cent. Within the automobile industry, car production touched 39 per cent growth during April-September 1999 even as light commercial vehicles and three-wheelers showed less than 10 per cent growth. The survey has predicted continuation of similar rate of growth for the sector in the second half of the current fiscal with exports also showing low to negative growth during the period.

Forcement, it predicted a 10-15 per cent growth in the second half for both production and sales. However, aluminium which showed a 15 per cent growth in production in the first six months, is expected to show a 5-10 per cent growth only in the next half.

According to the survey covering about 65 per cent of the total industry output, consumer non-durables like newsprint, drugs and pharmaceuticals showed high to moderate growth in sales would see a fall in growth rates.