BISINISS WORLD NEWS

 ISLAMABAD: After tough days in 2009, Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) registered substantial growth of 7.46 percent in January over the corresponding period last year.

The strong performance of the sector in January also pushed up the overall growth figures of the current financial year as in July to January 2009-10, it grew 2.34 percent over the corresponding period of last fiscal year.

The break-up of industrial sector showed that the petroleum sector continued performing dismally and Oil Companies Advisory Committee (OCAC) index recorded fell immensely 9.16 percent in January and 6.49 percent in first seven months of this fiscal year.

Analysts pointed out that the number of issues are still impeding the growth in the industrial production like high financing cost, growing prices of utilities and above all the prolonged power outages in the industrial hubs of the country are giving a severe blow to industries.