The year 2015 seems to be a great year for India, economy wise. Official data reveals that India may have just fallen short of surpassing China as the fastest-growing emerging market economy in 2014-15, but its 7.3 per cent growth is expected to have matched that of the Asian neighbour.
Union finance minister Arun Jaitley announced the new figures as “recovery of the economy.” He said, “It's absolutely clear that economy is on the recovery mode. I say that because the services sector has significantly improved, it's doing well. What seems to be a silver lining is that manufacturing sector is now growing. This, coupled with the revenue figures of April 2015 holds out a hope for growth in the manufacturing sector.”
Finance Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi believes the encouraging part of the data is the growth in manufacturing to 7.1 per cent from last year's 5.3 per cent. “The growth is 7.2 per cent at basic prices and 7.3 per cent at market prices. This is in spite of a decline in agriculture growth from 3.7 per cent to 0.2 per cent. The encouraging part of the data is the growth in manufacturing to 7.1 per cent from last year’s 5.3 per cent which would also mean that we are creating jobs in our growth path.”
The government estimated a growth of around 5.5 per cent, using the old methodology, but the Central Statistics Office’s reworking of the numbers has changed the official growth pace under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who made economic reforms a priority during his first year in office.
India may have just fallen short of surpassing China as the fastest-growing emerging market economy in 2014-15, but its 7.3 per cent growth is expected to have matched that of the Asian neighbour. Even as official data from Beijing is awaited, estimates on the Chinese economy also suggests a 7.3 per cent growth during 2014-15. Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have also in their recent estimates said India may well be the fastest-growing emerging market economy.
The growth in India's gross domestic product (GDP) - which is a measure of the total value of goods and services produced in the country - was estimated to have expanded by just 4.7 per cent in 2013-14 as per the earlier estimate. But after a revision in base year to 2011-12, the growth stood altered to 6.9 per cent.
The growth for the four quarters of fiscal 2014-15 was 6.7 per cent, 8.4 per cent, 6.6 per cent and 7.5 per cent, according to the release issued by the Central Statistics Office.
