By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s services sector expanded at a faster pace in the first seven months of the current fiscal year compared to the like period last year, says a survey conducted by a leading industry body.
“The services sector growth has gained momentum during the period April-October 2009 confirming that there has been a significant improvement in growth rates of various services sectors,” said the survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The survey was conducted across 33 industry verticals, with responses coming from more than 350 services-related industry associations, organisations and companies in both the private and public sectors.
CII found that around 12 percent of those surveyed registered a handsome growth rate of more than 20 percent in the first seven months this fiscal, compared to 12.5 percent during the corresponding period last year.
“The share of the sectors registering high growth rate of 10 to 20 percent has increased to 30.3 percent in April-October 2009 from 24.2 percent in the previous corresponding period,” the study said.
“Timely action taken by Reserve Bank of India and the government in terms of stimulus packages have fuelled growth across major segments of services sectors,” said CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee in a statement.
About 48.5 percent of the responding sectors saw more restrained growth up to 10 percent, a drop from 51.52 percent levels recorded in the previous corresponding period.
The CII survey said that sectors logging a negative growth rate declined to nine percent during the period under review, compared to 12 percent of such cases during April-October 2008, which reflect signs of improvement in the overall economy.
It also said telecom (mobile and wireless) and financial services related to asset management rose more than 20 percent, while other businesses related to tourism, franchising, life insurance, housing finance, education and retail grew by 10-20 percent.
Railway revenues from freight, passenger traffic, air travel (international and domestic), construction, IT, media and entertainment grew at a lesser pace –
0-10 percent.
However, according to the CII survey, sectors that have declined were telecom (fixed line) and international air freight.