India: Industrial activity contracts at sharpest pace on record in April
Industrial output fell 55.5% in year-on-year terms in April, which was a larger contraction than March’s 18.3% decrease. April’s figure marked the worst reading on record and was largely due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which put India into a national lockdown from late March, and which remained largely in place throughout April. Specifically, the reading for April was driven by a decline across all three industrial output sub-sectors: the manufacturing, electricity and mining sub-sectors.
Meanwhile, the trend pointed down, with the annual average variation of industrial production coming in at minus 5.5% in April, down from March’s minus 0.6% reading.