The growth rate of six core industries including crude oil, refinery products, coal, power, cement and finished steel declined to 1.4 per cent in January with crude and petroleum products output entering in negative territory.

However, cement, coal, electricity and finished (carbon) steel performed well during the period due to various measures announced by government to boost economic growth in India.

The growth index was at 3.6 per cent in the previous month and at 4.7 per cent in September 2008. The recent decline indicates decline in demand under the impact of worsening global economic slowdown.

Country's Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is likely to remain weak under given circumstances as core industries contribute about 27 per cent of IIP.

Saugata Bhattacharya, vice-president, Axis Bank, said, "The core sectors are a large block of the basic goods segment of the IIP. The 1.4 per cent growth in January is one of the lowest." IIP dropped by 2 per cent in December 2008 due to low demand in global and domestic market.

Experts believe that reduction of 8 per cent in crude oil production and contraction of petroleum products production during the period helped to report significant decline in growth of core industries.

Credit rating agency, CARE's chief economist, Soumendra K Dash said, "The core sector data will show some improvement in the coming two months. Growth rate in sectors like cement has picked up on the back of the stimulus measures announced in infrastructure sector." (With Inputs from TopNews correspondents in India)