Economic indicators improve, but quarter to go down as worst in history

The manufacturing segment in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) reported a steep 67.1 per cent contraction in April. The rate of contraction reduced to 39.3 per cent in May 2020, mitigating the cumulative contraction during April-May 2020 at 52.7 per cent.

Consumption of finished steel fell YoY by 56.8 per cent during April-June 2020.

Performance of steel and cement is used as proxy indicator by the National Statistical Office (NSO) to estimate construction GVA. Production of cement fell by 54.1 per cent during April-June 2020.

Conventional energy generation was down YoY by 18.3 per cent in the June quarter. Power demand started declining from the month of April and continued the trend till June-end due to lockdown.

Among mined products, coal offtake shrank YoY by 24.2 per cent in June quarter. Production of crude oil declined YoY by 22.5 per cent.

Freight traffic volume was down 21.4 per cent to 241.55 million tonnes (mt). As much as 93.58 mt goods were transported in June compared to 101.42 mt a year ago.

Traffic at major ports declined YoY by 19.7 per cent during April-June. Fall in June at 14.5 per cent was lower than the 21-23 per cent fall witnessed in the preceding two months.

E-way bill generation too reported an improvement in June 2020, rising YoY by 17.7 per cent, after reporting a steep contraction of 83.6 per cent in April and 53 per cent in May. For the June quarter, e-way bill generation remained 46.1 per cent lower than its year-ago level.