New Delhi: Showing signs of sluggishness in the economy, growth rate of industrial production slowed to 3.4 percent in June, as against 5 percent in May, mainly due to lower output of consumer goods.

However, the factory output number has remained in the positive territory for the third month in a row mainly due to a better show by manufacturing, mining and power sectors and higher output of capital goods.

The output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production, had contracted by 1.8 percent in June, 2013.

IIP for May was revised to 5 percent from the provisional estimates of 4.7 percent released last month, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

During the April-June period of the current fiscal, IIP has recorded a growth of 3.9 percent, as against contraction of 1 percent in the first quarter of 2013-14.

According to the IIP data, output of consumer goods contracted by 10 percent in June compared to the contraction of 1.5 percent a year ago. For the April-June quarter, the segment shows a contraction of 3.6 percent, compared to a decline of 2.1 percent in the same period of 2013-14.

The consumer durables segment declined by 23.4 percent in June, as against a dip of 10.1 percent a year ago. For April- June, it declined by 9.6 percent as against a dip of 12.7 percent in the first quarter of last fiscal.

Similarly, the consumer non-durable goods output grew at a meagre rate of 0.1 percent in June compared to 6.2 percent in same month last year. During April-June, the segment grew at 0.7 percent compared to 7.1 percent in same period last fiscal.

Manufacturing, which constitutes over 75 percent of the index, grew 1.8 percent in June, compared to decline in output by 1.7 percent a year ago. For April-June, the sector grew at 3.1 percent growth, compared to the contraction of
1.1 percent in the year-ago period.

Overall, 15 of the 22 industry groups in manufacturing showed positive growth in May.---- PTI