Mumbai, Jan 24 (KNN) Due to the sluggish economic growth, the credit growth to the industrial sector witnessed slowdown on a year-on-year basis with the small and medium industries like gems and jewellery, cement products and metal products showing deceleration in credit growth, according to (RBI) data on sectoral deployment of bank credit for December 2013.

“Credit to the industry increased by 14.1 per cent in December 2013 on a year-on-year basis, compared with a rise of 15.2 per cent in December 2012,” the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said.

There was deceleration in credit growth in cement and cement products, infrastructure, metals and metal products, gems and jewellery, mining and quarrying, and petroleum, coal products and nuclear fuels, it said.

Data released was for the month of December 2013 on sectoral deployment of credit collected from select 47 scheduled commercial banks accounting for about 95 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all scheduled commercial banks.

Meanwhile, credit to the services sector increased by 17.4 per cent in December 2013 as compared with the increase of 10.9 per cent in December 2012.

Personal loans increased 15.8 per cent in December 2013 on a year-on-year basis, compared with a rise of 13.8 per cent in December 2012.

On a year-on-year basis, non-food bank credit increased by 14.8 per cent in December 2013, compared with the increase of 14.3 per cent in December 2012, RBI data noted.

Credit to non-banking financial companies increased by 15.1 per cent in December 2013, compared with the increase of 16.5 per cent in the same month in the previous year.

Credit to agriculture and allied activities rose by 11.5 per cent in December 2013, compared with an increase of 18.3 per cent in December 2012. (KNN/SD)