Eight Indian core sectors grew 3.8 percent in December 2021 compared to 3.4 percent in November 2021, the government said on January 31.

According to data provided by the Ministry of Commerce, coal output rose 5.2 percent, while refineries increased 5.9 percent.

The biggest increase in output in December 2021 for natural gas, which posted an increase of 19.5 percent. Cement follows carefully, with the output up 12.9 percent.

Fertilizer and electricity production increased by 3.5 percent and 2.5 percent respectively.

Two sectors that see contractions in their output are crude oil and steel. While crude oil output fell 1.8 percent, steel production fell 1.0 percent.

During April-December 2021, eight core sectors grew 12.6 percent. In April-December 2020, their output shrank 9.8 percent.

While the growth rate of the core sector for December 2021 was higher than the recorded in November 2021, he continued to get an increase of 8.4 percent witnessed in October 2021.

“Similar to eight core industries, the performance of December 2021 of many high frequency indicators has discussed the growth of each of which was recorded in October 2021,” said Aditi Nargging, Chief Economist ICRA.

Thus, Nark expects industrial growth, according to the industrial production index (IIP), to return below 2.0 percent on December 2021.

Eight Core Industries together accounted for 40.3% of the total weight of IIP. Thus, the number growth number of the core sector holds instructions for what monthly industry growth.

IIP data for December 2021 is scheduled to be released on February 11. The latest data showed industrial growth slumped to a nine-month low of 1.4 percent in November 2021.