Mumbai: The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) today (Dec 9, 2003) revised upwards its industrial forecast for 2003-04 by one per cent to 5.5 per even as the food sector is expected to show a positive three percent growth as against the earlier projection of a decline of 0.4 per cent.

"While industrial growth was driven by automobiles and metal sectors in the first half of the year, the growth is expected to broaden in the coming months," the leading economic think-tank said in a release in Mumbai.

The manufacturing sector was also expected to grow by six per cent as against the earlier estimate of five per cent.

On the food sector, it said sugar, edible oils and milk powder were expected to perform better than earlier estimates.

As per CMIE, first half of 2003-04 has warranted a revision in the forecasts for these as well.

The growth estimate for the transport sector has been upped to 25 per cent from 20 per cent and that for machinery and paper products sectors have been revised upwards to five per cent and 15 per cent respectively from two per cent and 10 per cent estimated earlier, it added.

The paper industry has already clocked a growth of nearly 18 months in the first half ended September 2003, it said, adding, the machinery forecast has been scaled up seeing a rise (albeit small) in investments in this period.

PTI