Going by a survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), recovery appears to be round the corner for the manufacturing industry - with positive sales' growth being depicted by a much higher percentage of firms in the quarter that ended 31 March vis-à-vis the preceding quarter.

While 70 percent of the industries surveyed by CII showed increased sales for the January-March 2009 quarter, 66.67 percent had shown growth during the October-December 2008 quarter.

A closer look at specific sectors revealed that some sectors - like fertilisers, steel, pig iron, and mopeds - have shown signs of marginal recovery, moving from negative growth to marginal, 10 percent, growth in production; others - including cement, auto components, auto industry, sponge iron, and consumer durables - sustained their moderate growth of up to 10 percent.

Meanwhile, moderate to high growth in production, between 10-20 percent, was depicted by sectors like vanaspati; while sectors like industrial gases, electric two-wheelers, and power transformers reported excellent production growth of more than 20 percent.

Elaborating on the results of the survey, CII's director general, Chandrajit Banerjee, said: "While on a yearly basis the manufacturing sector has slowed down, there are some green shoots from a few sectors that have demonstrated a marginal pickup during the second half of 2008-09 when compared with the first half. These demonstrate a cautious optimism on signs of recovery."