Inudstry on recovery path — CII

The associations council has a membership of 124 industry sectors and covers nearly 65 per cent of the total industry output. The CII president said the number of industries registering an excellent growth of over 20 percent had increased during 1999/2000.

However, sectors like nylon filament yarn, textile machinery, machine tools, crude oil and hydro-electric power posted a negative production growth, the CII survey said.

It added that sectors like aluminium, polyester filament yarn, multi-utility vehicles and software reported excellent or high export growth, while it was negative in case of cement soda ash, textile machinery, cigarettes and tobacco, tea and construction projects. The survey reported a fragile growth in sectors such as fertilizers, tractors and refrigerators.

The CII president said poor investment in infrastructure projects had adversely affected the capital goods industry and was holding back growth.Last week, CII said it expected the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by around 7.0 per cent in 2000/01 (April-March) compared with 5.9 per cent in 1999/2000.

The country’s farm sector was likely to grow 1.5 to 2.0 per cent, industry 8.5 per cent, and services growth at 9.0 per cent in 2000/01, the industry body had said.

The CII initiatives for 2000-2001, the CII president said, were R&D, technology and bio-informatics, focus on small and medium enterprises, privatisation of public sector enterprises, WTO services, enhancing the competitiveness of the service sector, setting up of a national services sector council, empowering and involving state governments in the matter of reforms and initiatives in infrastructure.

State vision document

MUMBAI: Confederation of Indian Industry’s Western Region will shortly sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Maharashtra Government to set up a National Task Force to develop a vision statement for the state and outline a strategy for realising this vision.

"Towards this end, a task force under the leadership of Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh will soon be set up in the state," CII said. Currently, the draft modalities for the MoU which would be signed soon, were being worked out, CII president Arun Bharat Ram said.