Core Sector Growth
According to a government press release on Monday, a fall in the production of crude oil, natural gas, and electricity in June 2023 lowered the growth of eight important infrastructure sectors to 8.2% from May’s rate of 5%.
According to figures from the Commerce Ministry, the core industry grew by 13.1% in June 2022.
According to data, June 2023 saw an increase in the prices of steel, coal, cement, refinery products, natural gas, fertilisers, and electricity compared to the same month in the previous year.
After gaining 32.1% in the same month a year prior, the coal industry recorded growth of 9.8% in June on a YoY basis. While crude oil experienced a decline of 0.6% YoY, natural gas increased by 3.6%.
In contrast to a growth of 28.04% in the same month a year ago, refinery products witnessed a growth of 4.6% this month. Cement and fertilisers each had increase of 9.4% and 3.4%, while the steel sector saw growth of 21.9%.
Electricity grew 3.3 per cent.
The index of eight core industries (ICI) assesses the performance of the core industries of coal, crude oil, natural gas, products of refineries, fertilisers, steel, cement, and power both collectively and individually. The weight of these items in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is 40.27 percent.
According to the government, ICI’s overall growth rate for the quarter from April to June of the current fiscal year was 5.8 percent (provisional), compared to 13.9 percent during the same period last year.
