NEW DELHI: India's industrial output shrank unexpectedly in April, statistics ministry data showed Friday, the latest figures that economists say contradict recent glowing GDP numbers.
A government index showed that industrial production -- a broad measure that includes manufacturing, mining and power -- was 0.8 percent lower in April than in the same month last year. Economists had predicted a rise of about 0.5 percent.
Output of capital goods -- such as machinery or equipment that is used to make other products -- tumbled 24.9 percent year-on-year, the worst showing in ten years, analysts said.
The figures are the latest to clash with official rates of growth that depict a soaring Indian economy, with GDP said to have grown 7.9 percent in the most recent quarter, far outpacing China.
"Today's industrial production data suggest, in stark contrast to the upbeat message from the rocketing GDP figures, that Indian industry is still in the doldrums," economists at Capital Economics wrote in a note.
India's top statistician T.C.A. Anant admitted in an interview earlier this month that the country's economic data are "imperfect".
However, Anant defended the country's GDP figures against accusations they vastly overstate the performance of the supposedly booming economy.
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