India’s GDP may have grown by more than 7.5% in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, finance secretary Rajiv Mehrishi said on Thursday. ”The (Q1) figure seems to be in excess of 7.5%,” Mehrishi told FE.
The government will release the GDP data for Q1FY16 on August 31. Indian economy grew by 7.3% in FY15. A growth above 7.5% could boost market confidence at this juncture given the fears emanating from the troubles of the Chinese economy, analysts said. “We are penciling a Q1GDP growth as a big positive surprise,” SBI Research said on Thursday.
Mehrishi said the recent downside to the Indian stock market as well as the rupee was due to purely external factors. Even though the benchmark BSE Sensex has suffered a decline and rupee has breached 66/$, still the data on equity premia and the comfortable foreign reserves show that the macro fundamentals are still in a significantly better shape than they were previously, analysts say.
“The current account deficit, fiscal deficit and inflation are under control, and indirect tax collection is increasing. These are signs of health of the economy,” Mehrishi said.
Global rating agency Moody’s on Tuesday trimmed India’s growth forecast for the current fiscal to around 7% from 7.5% predicted earlier, citing risks from a deficient monsoon season. However, while the IMF has predicted India’s growth to touch 7.5% in the current fiscal, the finance ministry has pegged it in the range of 8-8.5% and the central bank retained its projection at 7.6% in the annual report released on Thursday.