CHENNAI: India’s core industrial sectors saw slow growth at 5.4% (provisionally) in July in the second print with the new base year of 2022-23 from the revised 6% in June, according to the official data released on Thursday. The slowdown is significantly driven by underperformance in the fertilisers, iron ore and steel sectors, accompanied by fall in the natural gas and crude oil sectors.
The index of Core Industries data, released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, showed that July’s growth was the second-fastest in the last seven months.
The cumulative growth rate during April-June 2026 was 4.3% compared to 1.5% in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The fertilisers sector contracted 8% in July compared to 3.3% in June, whereas the iron ore sector growth slowed to 29.5% in July from 44.5% in June. The deceleration in fertilisers sector may be because of El Nino effect.
Steel output, rose at a more modest pace of 2.9%, down from 5.6% in June. On the other hand, petroleum refinery products output increased 2.7% after a degrowth of 4% in June.
Natural gas production saw degrowth of 3.7% year-on-year in July, however it is better than the degrowth of 4.8% in June while crude oil output declined 5.3% from a degrowth of 4.2% in the preceding month.
Notably, refinery products reversed their trajectory, moving out of the red after three consecutive months of contraction. The sector registered growth of 2.7% in July compared with -4% in June.
On a cumulative basis, the eight core industries grew 4.3% during April-July, compared with growth of 1.5% in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The sharp improvement in the cumulative performance indicates that core-sector activity has gained momentum during the early months of the current financial year.
