The 50-issue NSE Nifty in range-bound movements settled higher by 59.15 points, or 0.58 per cent, at 10,252.10.
Pencilling in a GDP growth in third and fourth quarters, SBI Research on Wednesday revised its contraction forecast for the current fiscal year to 7 per cent. The agency had earlier forecast a 7.4 per cent contraction in 2020-21 GDP numbers. In April-September, the economy contracted 15.7 per cent but the second half may see a surprise 2.8 per cent growth, if the SBI analysis turns out to be correct.
The Reserve Bank of India on Friday decided to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 4 per cent but maintained an accommodative stance as the economy is yet to recover from the impact of the second Covid wave.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said the country is on an "upward curve" and a good monsoon, GST passage and increased infra and rural spending will further accelerate the growth.
India's economic growth is expected to improve to 6.3 per cent in 2016 with the country leading economic recovery in South Asia, according to a United Nations report.
While weather forecasters remain divided on how the monsoons will play out in India over the next few months, analysts believe the news at the current juncture - at best - can trigger a knee-jerk reaction in the markets. They believe it is too early to say whether the sub-par monsoon on account of El Nino can seriously dent the market sentiment in the short-to-medium term. "These are just initial forecasts and we will have another round / status update from the weather forecasters a month down the line.
India's GDP estimates for 2020-21 show that the economy is expected to perform much better than earlier projections by different agencies, indicating a sustained V-shape post-lockdown recovery, experts said. The first Advance Estimates (AE) by the National Statistics Office (NSO) has projected a contraction of 7.7 per cent in the real GDP during 2020-21. This was better than the projections by certain international agencies like the IMF and World Bank.
The IMF lowered India's economic growth estimate for the current fiscal to 4.8 per cent and listed the country's much lower-than-expected GDP numbers as the single biggest drag on its global growth forecast for two years.
Fitch said COVID-19 is still in India and it is very likely that the government will have to spend a bit more on fiscal measures to support the economy.
'The actions of Indian monetary authorities will depend on how quickly they want the inflation to come down to 4 per cent.'
Global rating agency Fitch on Friday pegged India's growth at 5.5 per cent in the current fiscal and 6 per cent in 2015-16 and affirmed the country's rating outlook at stable level.
Goldman Sachs forecasts real GDP growth to accelerate to 7.9 per cent in FY17 from a projected 7.5 per cent in FY16.
'The slide in growth has arisen primarily because we have an NBFC crisis on top of a banking crisis,' points out T T Ram Mohan.
Fitch Solutions sees RBI keeping benchmark interest rates unchanged during the fiscal to March 2022 following its decision to buy Rs 1 lakh crore of government bonds. "We had initially expected another policy rate cut to arrest the rise in government bond yields since the Union Budget announcement in February. "However, having an explicit bond purchase guidance from the RBI following the announcement of the G-SAP will also achieve a similar effect, if not even be more effective than a rate cut on capping the increase in bond yields," it said in a note. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) held its policy repurchase (repo) rate unchanged at 4 per cent at its monetary policy meeting on April 7.
India's macroeconomic situation is improving fast and the country's GDP growth will turn positive in the third and fourth quarters of the current financial year, eminent economist Ashima Goyal said on Sunday. Goyal in an interview to PTI said the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and gradual unlocks announced by the government have helped in avoiding multiple COVID-19 peaks. The growth estimates by different agencies are being continuously revised, she said.
India, which appears to have been pushed back to being the world's sixth biggest economy in 2020, will again overtake the UK to become the fifth largest in 2025 and race to the third spot by 2030, a think tank said on Saturday. India had overtaken the UK in 2019 to become the fifth largest economy in the world but has been relegated to 6th spot in 2020. "India has been knocked off course somewhat through the impact of the pandemic. "As a result, after overtaking the UK in 2019, the UK overtakes India again in this year's forecasts and stays ahead till 2024 before India takes over again," the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) said in an annual report published on Saturday. The UK appears to have overtaken India again during 2020 as a result of the weakness of the rupee, it said.
Stating that pushing GDP growth, which has slipped to 5-year low of 6.8 per cent in 2018-19, is the top priority, President Ramnath Kovind said Modi govt will bring more reforms and raise farm investments to boost growth.
The Economic Survey seems convinced that 2019-2020 saw the bottom of the economic cycle, points out Abheek Barua, chief economist, HDFC Bank.
The economic impact of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 on emerging economies will depend on a mix of government restrictions, public comfort with social interactions, and capacity of governments and central banks to provide additional policy support to the private sector, Moody's Investors Service said on Wednesday. The emergence of the new variant poses new risks to the global economic growth and inflation outlook, as concerns mount about the variant's health risks and several countries have imposed new travel restrictions in recent days. These restrictions will likely increase over the coming weeks until scientists learn more about the variant, it said.
RBI also retained its GDP growth forecast at 7.6 per cent
Manufacturers said they expect the growth of manufacturing sector to be less than 7 per cent.
Markets trimmed early gains to end marginally higher on Friday as investors turned cautious ahead of the GDP data for the current fiscal to be released on Friday.
While most economies contracted in the second quarter of 2020, the Chinese economy grew by 3.2 per cent.
With the new Indian government showing signs of economic reforms and brings in transparency in governance, the World Bank feels that the world's third-largest economy could achieve a growth rate of 5.5 per cent this year as compared to 4.7 per cent last year.
The fourth consecutive rate cut is expected to lower equated monthly instalments (EMIs) for home and auto buyers, and borrowing cost for corporate.
The revision of the consumer price index and GDP base years from 2011-12 and 2012, respectively, were dependent on the outcomes of the consumer expenditure survey of 2017-18 that the government decided to junk recently.
The wholesale price index inflation is projected at 6.4 per cent for 2017-18.
A piece of slightly negative news can cause a serious setback, warns Debashis Basu.
Stating that India's consolidated deficit is the highest among the G20 nations, Gopinath added it is important for India to undertake reforms.
Most analysts expect the note ban to sharply hit GVA growth in Q3 and Q4, and the central bank's stance is being called into question.
It can be noted that according to official estimates, GDP growth in FY14 is expected to come in at 4.9 per cent, up from 4.5 per cent in FY13, Icra said.
India is expected to be among the top contributors in terms of incremental ad spends in the world, only behind the US and China.
As per OECD's September estimates, global growth was to be 3 per cent this year and 3.6 per cent in 2016.
Recent IMF forecast said China's growth is expected to slow down.
Yes Bank was the top loser in the Sensex pack cracking 6.51 per cent, followed by SBI, Axis Bank, Vedanta, Sun Pharma, ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, ITC, Infosys and Tech Mahindra, shedding up to 3.69 per cent.
Much of the Q3 data will simply not be available for the CSO to factor in its calculation.
A normal monsoon, softer interest rates and inflation, pent-up demand, along with mild budgetary support may help growth pick up in coming quarters.
Earlier Rajeev Malik an analyst with Macquarie Group had downgraded India's economic growth forecast to 6.5 per cent for the fiscal ended March 2010, from 7 per cent on account of weak monsoon.
Growth has slowed in some of the large emerging economies, its interim economic assessment report added. "One factor has been a rise in global bond yields -- triggered in part by an expected scaling back of the US Federal Reserve's quantitative easing -- which has fuelled market instability and capital outflows in a number of major emerging economies, such as India and Indonesia.
Attributing the growth to an upswing in consumption and investment, the World Bank has said India will continue to be the fastest growing major economy in the world.
