Engineering Post Report
Manufacturing sector had remained sound and resilient during FY2021 on the back of well in time federal government initiatives despite the concerns raised by pandemic of COVD-19 countrywide.
Federal government’s well thoughtful decision to resume the business activities and adoption of smart lockdown boosted the business sentiments and resultantly the national economy gained traction after witnessing a hefty decline in FY2020.
Targeted fiscal and monetary incentives accompanied by related support packages helped speed up the economic recovery. Situation had also further ameliorated by depreciation of US dollar against Rupee and launch of COVID-19 vaccine .
During July 2020-March 2021, for which the information has become available from official sources concerned, manufacturing sector in the country had bounced back and Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) posted 9.0 per cent growth while there was 5.1 per cent contraction in the same period during the last year.
The LSM expansion is broad based, reflecting production increase in major manufacturing sectors. This is the highest period-wise growth since FY2007 supported by promising performance of Textile, Food Beverages & Tobacco and Automobile. Construction Package of the Prime Minister has also supported well all other allied industries such as increased cement dispatches and iron and steel production in the country.
On year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis, LSM was exhibiting positive trajectory since July FY2021 which indicated that the federal government’s proactive role had not only catered the pandemic adversities but also rather made LSM to outperform its pre-COVID-19 level.
LSM as such had increased by 22.4 per cent in March FY2021 against 21.7 per cent decline in the same month last year which was the time when pandemic had started hitting business activities . It was indeed encouraging to not that Y-o-Y performance of LSM was improving as compared to previous years as well. Month-on-Month (M-o-M) performance had also been satisfactory as LSM showed 2.9 per cent average growth during current financial year.
Briefly , manufacturing sector has been a major contributor in sustaining growth rate during FY2021.
Group wise performance analysis of LSM will be submitted later, please.
