Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar has said that the country’s large scale manufacturing (LSM) industry is showing strong growth, as it increased by 11.4 percent in December last, as compared to same month of the preceding year. The federal minister in a tweet said that it is another double digit growth month for the large scale manufacturing. Asad Umar said on average the large scale manufacturing production posted a growth of eight percent during July to December last year. He said the industrial sector is now showing sustained strong growth. Earlier on Friday, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) said that the Large Scale Manufacturing Index (LSMI) output increased by 11.40 percent for December 2020 compared to December 2019 and 13.51 percent if compared to November 2020. According to monthly data released by PBS, the overall output of LSMI increased by 8.16 percent for July-December 2020-21 compared to July-December 2019-20. The production in July-December 2020-21 as compared to July-December 2019-20 has increased in textile, food, beverages & tobacco, coke & petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, non metallic mineral products, automobiles, fertilizers and paper & paperboard while it decreased in electronics, leather products and engineering products.