Growth of the six core industries picked up to 2.9% in March 2009, the highest increase in the last six months. But their overall annual growth of 2.7% in 2008-09 was less than half the 5.9% clocked in 2007-08.
The improvement in March was mainly thanks to the cement industry, which grew by 10.1%, a significant improvement over the high 9.3% a year earlier. Electricity generation grew by 5.9%, coal production went up by 5.2% and petroleum refinery output grew 3.3%.
Trends in these three sectors have, however, diverged sharply. While the pick-up in power generation in March was the highest posted over the whole fiscal, growth in the coal sector continued its five-month deceleration. Output growth in the petroleum segment is also the highest recorded over the last five months.
Surprisingly, the numbers show that the output of finished steel declined by 2.6% in March after registering a slow recovery in growth over the previous two months. The 2.3% decline in crude oil production in March was not unexpected given that output in the sector had declined in the previous three months.
Growth of the six core industries fluctuated throughout last year. Though there was a slight pick-up in the second quarter of the fiscal, the trends decelerated in the third quarter, and the segments have not shown any recovery since then.
Numbers for the full financial year show that coal has been the best performing segment, registering a respectable 8.1% growth, followed closely by cement, where output grew by 7.5%. However, growth was far more moderate in the petroleum refinery and electricity segments, with growth rates in 2008-09 down to 3% and 2.7%, respectively. The worst performance was in steel, where output moved up by just 0.4%, and crude oil where production declined by 1.8% during the year.