Econintersect: Industrial Production (IP) for India rose at rate of 3.4% in April. The primary drivers were electricity generation and manufacturing. The reaction to the announcement was tempered by the declines for the two previous months, -0.5% in March and -1.7% in February. What was encouraging was the very favorable comparisons to past April reports. IP grew by 1.8% in April 2013 and fell by 1.8% the same month in 2012.
The lack of enthusiasm for what appears to be a strong number can be understood by looking at the graphic below. IP has been extremely volatile and has produced an average over the last year only slightly above zero (almost no year-to-year growth).
This amount of volatility is not unusual for India, as the ten-year graph below shows.
Source:
Industry grows at fastest rate in 13 months (Business Standard, 13 June 2014)
