India's factory production expanded in April 2019 by 3.4 per cent from a revised growth of 0.35 per cent reported for March, 2019, official data showed on Wednesday.

However, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, April's industrial production growth of 3.4 per cent was lower than 4.5 per cent that was achieved during the corresponding month of the previous fiscal.

The Indices of Industrial Production for the Mining, Manufacturing and Electricity sectors for the month of April 2019 stand at 107.8, 126.6 and 162.9 respectively, with the corresponding growth rates of 5.1 percent, 2.8 percent and 6.0 percent as compared to April 2018.

The cumulative growth in these three sectors during April-March 2018-19 over the corresponding period of 2017-18 has been 2.9 percent, 3.6 percent and 5.2 percent respectively.

In terms of industries, fourteen out of the twenty three industry groups (as per 2-digit NIC-2008) in the manufacturing sector have shown positive growth during the month of April 2019 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year.

The industry group ‘Manufacture of wearing apparel’ has shown the highest positive growth of 33.6 percent followed by 22.6 percent in ‘Manufacture of wood and products of wood and cork, except furniture; manufacture of articles of straw and plaiting materials’ and 16.3 percent in ‘Printing and reproduction of recorded media’.

On the other hand, the industry group ‘Manufacture of paper and paper products’ has shown the highest negative growth of (-) 12.3 percent followed by (-) 9.6 percent in ‘Manufacture of fabricated metal products, except machinery and equipment’ and (-) 3.5 percent in ‘Manufacture of other transport equipment’.