Indian industrial production growth slowed sharply in December, its slowest pace in two months, adding to pressure on the central bank to start cutting interest rates to help stimulate an economy that is headed for its slowest growth in three years.
Output from India's factories, mines and utilities increased a lower-than-expected 1.8 percent in the month from a year earlier, government data showed on Friday. Analysts on average had expected a rise of 3.4 percent, a Reuters poll showed. The December figure compares with November's increase of 5.95 percent.
The notoriously volatile data came days after the government cut its economic growth forecast to a three-year low of 6.9 percent for the fiscal year that ends in March. Manufacturing output, which constitutes about 76 percent of industrial production, rose 1.8 percent from a year earlier, the federal statistics office said. During April-December, industrial production expanded 3.6 percent. Output grew 7.8 percent in the 2010/11 fiscal year that ended in March, below the 10.5 percent clocked the year before.
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