Industrial growth increases to 6.4 per cent

Raising expectations of a recovery, August factory output hit a near-three-year high of 6.4 per cent on the back of a strong manufacturing sector performance. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had expanded a mere 0.5 per cent in August last year. It rose 4.2 per cent in July this year. Data recently released by the Central Statistics Office revealed that the manufacturing sector, which has a 75 per cent weight in the IIP, grew by 6.9 per cent in August this year compared with a contraction of 1.1 per cent in the same month last year. Similarly, the mining sector expanded at a robust 3.8 per cent this August against 1.2 per cent last fiscal.