India's manufacturing sector may sustain growth for more 8-9 months: Survey

India's manufacturing sector is most likely to sustain growth for the next six to nine months, which it witnessed in past few months, said the latest quarterly survey by FICCI on 7 November.

The FICCI survey says the the existing average capacity utilisation in manufacturing is over 70 per cent, which reflects a sustained economic activity in the sector.

As compared to previous quarter, close to 40 per cent respondents reported plans for capacity additions in the next six months by over 15 per cent on an average, added FICCI.

Though the global economic uncertainty caused by the Russia-Ukraine war and increasing cases of various mutations of COVID virus worldwide have accentuated the volatilities impacting major economies.

Major constraints affecting expansion plans of the respondents include high raw material prices, increased cost of finance, cumbersome regulations and clearances, shortage of working capital, high logistics cost due to rising fuel prices and blocked shipping lanes, low domestic and global demand, excess capacities due to high volume of cheap imports into India, unstable market, and other supply chain disruptions.

This is significantly more than the percentage of respondents experiencing higher growth in the second quarter of last few years, including pre-Covid years, it added.