KARACHI, July 15: Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) sector, backbone of the economy, could hardly achieve a growth half of what it achieved last year, reflecting growing dependence of the economy on services sector.

The latest data issued by the State Bank showed the growth of LSM as 4.7 per cent during July-April 2007-08, indicating the growth pattern of LSM for another two months.

Since data-processing of industrial production is time-consuming, the 10-month figures give an updated picture of the LSM growth.

The most disappointing is the growth of textile sector which has largest share of 24.49 in the LSM. The textile sector growth was just 2.5 per cent during this period.

The LSM growth remained a significant contributor to GDP growth during in 2006-07 with value-addition rising by 8.8 per cent, down from the 10.7 per cent growth in the preceding year.

The textile sector contributed almost a quarter of the increase in value-addition in LSM during the fiscal 2006-07.

However, this year the second heavyweight, food and beverages, with a total share of 14.35 per cent posted a growth of 10 per cent.

Within this sector, the sugar production growth rose by 28.9 per cent while beverages growth was 20.9 per cent.

The pharmaceutical sector, which has been making hue and cry to increase the prices of their products, posted the highest growth of 28.7 per cent. The sector has a share of 5.03 per cent in LSM.

The automobile sector which has been a key player in pushing the industrial growth higher witnessed a negative growth. Having a share of 3.95 per cent in LSM, the automobile sector recorded negative 0.1 per cent growth.

The major sector within this was cars and jeeps which posted a collective growth of minus five