Highlights of the Economic Survey 2025-26
India has expressed serious concerns about the West Asia crisis and its potential impact on energy supplies and maritime stability, urging BRICS nations to find practical solutions to geopolitical challenges and unilateral sanctions.
'Once the market decides it wants to go up, it goes up -- no amount of bad news can really hold it back.'
This year's Economic Survey and the Union Budget were more closely followed for more reasons than one.
India's GDP growth rate will rise to 7 per cent by 2026 compared to 4.6 per cent for China, S&P Global Ratings said on Tuesday. In a report titled 'China Slows India Grows', S&P said it expects Asia-Pacific's growth engine to shift from China to South and Southeast Asia. "We project China's GDP growth to slow to 4.6 per cent in 2024 (2023: 5.4 per cent), edge up to 4.8 per cent in 2025, and return to 4.6 per cent in 2026.
Sectors such as electronics, pharmaceuticals and automobiles can see supply disruptions in value chain, which may lead to a derailment of the domestic economic growth.
India's high cost of capital due to relatively shallow corporate bond markets, limited institutional investor depth, sovereign risk premia, and regulatory restrictions on capital flows, is a constraint on private investment and long-run growth, the Economic Survey, authored by Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran, said.
An analysis of year-wise movements of average global crude oil prices versus India's GDP reveals no inverse correlation, contrary to wide belief.
Benchmark stock indices Sensex and Nifty closed higher on Thursday, helped by a rally in blue-chip Larsen & Toubro and the Economic Survey projecting the GDP growth of 6.8-7.2 per cent for the next fiscal.
Global forecasting firm Oxford Economics on Monday revised downwards its India GDP growth forecast for 2021 to 10.2 per cent from 11.8 per cent previously, citing the country's escalating health burden, faltering vaccination rate and lack of a convincing government strategy to contain the pandemic. Oxford Economics also said that notwithstanding the likelihood of further mobility restrictions, it expects India's targeted lockdown approach, less stringent restrictions, and resilient consumer and business behaviour to mitigate the economic impact of the second wave.
West Bengal Governor RN Ravi has called for collective efforts to restore the state's past glory, highlighting concerns over economic and educational indicators. His remarks coincided with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee criticising him for allegedly 'abusing' her instead of extending New Year greetings.
After a 25 basis point rate cut in December, the RBI on Friday decided to pause on the policy rate front amid geopolitical uncertainties.
'Even if the war ends tomorrow, which is unlikely, and we go back to the pre-war status quo, the world will still need some time to get over the sudden shock of oil price increases.'
'...especially pressure on the rupee, the current account deficit, and foreign exchange outflows.' 'The key question over the next several months is whether the government can prevent external turbulence from feeding into domestic economic pessimism.'
The country's GDP is likely to grow at 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020-21 and may see a contraction of around 7.3 per cent for the full financial year, according to an SBI research report 'Ecowrap'. The e-National Statistical Office (NSO) will release the GDP estimates for the March 2021 quarter and provisional annual estimates for the year 2020-21 on May 31. "Based on our 'nowcasting model', the forecasted GDP growth for Q4 would be around 1.3 per cent (with downward bias) as against NSO (National Statistical Office) projection of a negative (-)1 per cent," the research report said.
Warning that the new year will be riskier than the previous two in terms of growth, inflation and the perils of monetary policy normalisation on consumption demand in particular, along with other external risks, a Wall Street brokerage has pencilled in an 8.2 per cent GDP growth next fiscal, with more downside risks to the projection. The biggest risk to the projection is a derailed consumption demand that has been the main growth driver in the past many years, said the Bank of America Securities India house economists who still believe that consumption demand will remain the key driver of growth next fiscal as well.
The government on Thursday exuded confidence in sustaining GDP growth of over 8 per cent in the next fiscal following a slew of economic policies announced during 2003-04.
However, the World Bank has projected India's GDP growth rate at 7.5 per cent for the next three financial years, including the current one.
Supported by strong buoyancy in public sector capital expenditure (capex), growth in infrastructure investment is expected to accelerate in 2025-26 (FY26) compared to 2024-25 (FY25), according to the First Advance Estimates of gross domestic product (GDP) for FY26 released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Wednesday.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said a GDP growth of 8 per cent was sustainable, and the target of 10 per cent growth per year was realistic.
The government on Tuesday said it is focusing on putting the economy back on the 9 per cent growth trajectory from 7.4 per cent during 2009-10 and then further pushing it to double digits.
For the time being, the RBI is done with the cuts. A cut in October, which many are still predicting, is not certain. Of course, if growth nosedives, the script will be different, expects Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The World Bank on Tuesday revised upwards its GDP growth forecast for India to 6.9 per cent for 2022-23, from 6.5 per cent earlier.
Goyal said India has been recognised as the brightest spot in the world in the past 5 years.
The SBI report, however, said the economic growth rate will pick up pace in 2020-21 to 6.2 per cent.
Reserve Bank Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Friday said the key policy rates will remain at low levels for a long period and may go down even further.
From the 30-share blue-chip pack, Adani Ports, UltraTech Cement, Larsen & Toubro, Sun Pharma, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, NTPC and State Bank of India were the major laggards. Tata Consultancy Services, Reliance Industries, ITC, Asian Paints, HCL Tech and Maruti were among the gainers.
The conflict may disrupt Budget 2026-2027 projections, squeezing revenues and raising subsidies, prompting fiscal adjustments and potential reforms, echoing lessons from the Covid-era shock, points out A K Bhattacharya.
The benchmark BSE Sensex's trailing 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple has declined to 20.2x, its lowest since May 2020, driven by a record $42 billion FPI selloff since September 2024 and concerns over corporate earnings and economic growth.
India's GST revenues experienced significant growth in March, reaching pre-tax cut levels, driven by increased imports and domestic sales. The report analyses the impact of tax rate changes and provides insights into future trends and economic stability.
It is pegged at 6.8-8% by various economists, as compared to 6.7%.
Trade deals ease risks for Indian equities, but weak demand and stretched valuations raise questions over whether optimism -- especially in smallcaps -- can turn into a sustained bull run, points out Debashis Basu.
India recorded economic growth of 7.8 per cent in the April-June quarter of 2023-24 against 13.1 per cent in the year-ago period, as per the National Statistical Office (NSO) data released on Thursday. India remains the fastest-growing major economy as China's GDP growth in the April-June quarter was 6.3 per cent.
India's urban areas are projected to contribute 70 per cent of gross domestic product in 2025-26, up from 45 per cent in the 1990s, according to a report by Dun & Bradstreet.
There are vexing questions around the disconnect between Nifty returns and portfolio returns, between economic growth and earnings growth, and finally, between earnings growth and market returns, points out Debashis Basu.
China's economy slowed down amid inflation concerns as its GDP growth rate slid to 9.5 per cent in the second quarter from 9.7 per cent in the first, while the economy in general expanded by 9.6 per cent in the first half of this year.
India's services sector growth rose to a two-month high of 58.5 in January, on faster expansion in new business intake and output, prompting service providers to hire additional staff, a monthly survey said on Wednesday.
The NSE Nifty ended at 4,449, up 112 points. The market breadth was positive - out of 2,852 stocks traded, 2,147 advanced while 649 declined.
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