"Depression has bottomed out and with economic revival its way back, the manufacturing sector will soon get back to the 14-16 per cent growth rate, which was the norm a decade ago," Shanker told a manufacturing summit of CII here.

He noted that domestic companies were expanding globally as the scope for investing in the domestic market was limited because of the slowdown in the economy as well as demand.

"But as the GDP rolls back to higher growth, companies will start investing in the domestic manufacturing sector." Shankar further said the governments and corporates should work together to give impetus to the sector.

"If you see our requirement, we need manufacturing on a massive scale and we have no option but to succeed. The government has announced a national manufacturing policy with the aim to generate 100 million jobs. To achieve this, corporates need to evolve a consensus on pushing the case for manufacturing," he said.

The industrial sector growth momentum improved through the September quarter. The three-month average of factory output growth rose to 1.7 per cent in Q2, from -1 per cent in the April-June period, led by an across the board improvement in electricity at 8.4 per cent as against 3.5 per cent, mining at -0.1 per cent from -4.7 per cent and manufacturing production at 1.2 per cent from -1 per cent.

"We estimate industrial sector to rise 1.8 per cent in Q2, versus -0.9 per cent growth in the previous quarter," a Deutsche Bank report said today.

PTI