- India's quarterly GDP growth had slid by record margins for two consecutive quarters due to the Covid-19 virus outbreak.
- The GDP had contracted by a massive 23.9 per cent in the June quarter amid the pandemic-led nationwide lockdown and by 7.5 per cent during the September quarter.
- In fact, India slipped into a technical recession in the July-September period as the domestic product (GDP) fell for two successive quarters.
- The median forecast from a survey of 58 economists by Reuters this week had predicted the gross domestic product to grow 0.5 per cent year-on-year in the December quarter.
- Meanwhile, the output of eight core infrastructure sectors grew 0.1 per cent in January 2021, compared to last year, according to government data on Friday, February 26.
- The infrastructure output, which comprises eight core sectors including coal, crude oil, and electricity, declined by 8.8 per cent during April-January 2020-2021 against a growth rate of 0.8 per cent in the same period of the previous year.
- In its Monetary Policy Review presented on February 5, the Reserve Bank of India has projected a GDP growth of 10.5 per cent in financial year 2021-22. The International Monetary Fund expects India to grow at 11.5 per cent in the same period.
- Economists have raised their forecasts for the current and next fiscal year, expecting a pick-up in government spending, consumer demand and resumption of most economic activities.
- Moody's revised its forecast to a 7 per cent contraction for the current fiscal year, ending in March, from an earlier estimate of a 10 per cent contraction. It predicted 13.7 per cent growth for next fiscal year, helped by resumption of economic activities.
- And India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) has suggested that the gross domestic product (GDP) growth will bounce back to 10.4 per cent year on year (y-o-y) in the next fiscal year, primarily driven by the base effect.
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