Record growth in industrial output, FDI inflows surge

New Delhi, Oct 6 (UNI) India's industrial production growth touched a ten-year high of 12.4 per cent while the foreign direct investment surged by a whopping 259 per cent to 1,163 million dollar from 324 million dollar in July 2006 over the same period last year.

''All the cogs in the wheel of GDP growth are performing exceedingly well,'' Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath told reporters while releasing the FDI and industrial growth figures here today.

Cumulatively, industrial growth in the first four months (April-July 2006-07) is up 10.6 per cent as compared to 8.9 per cent registered in the same period last year. The manufacturing sector has shown a robust growth of 13.3 per cent in July,2006, the minister said.

As for the FDI, the inflows (equity capital components) went up to 2.9 billion in April-July 2006 as compared to 1.5 billion dollar showing an increase of nearly 92 per cent.

The sectors which attracted the maximum FDI were electrical equipment, financial services, telecommunication, transportation indusry, fuels, chemicals, food processing, drugs and pharmaceuticals, cement and metallurgical industries.

Mauritius, the US, Japan, the Netherlands, UK, Germany, Singapore, France, South Korea and Switzerland were among the top investors.

The single largest inflow of 380 million dollar was by the Barclays Banl PLC, Singapore in the financial service sector.

According to RBI, the cumulative FDI inflows into the country from August 1991 to June 2006 was 50.1 billion dollar.

UNI PC CS ND1440