Emerging markets facing 5th year of slow growth: World Bank.
Asian Development Bank on Wednesday lowered India's economic growth forecast for FY2019 to 5.1 per cent on slowing job prospects, rural distress exacerbated by poor harvest and credit crunch. Growth in FY2020 is likely to recover thanks to this support, low oil prices, and a weakening rupee, but risks to the projections remain tilted to the downside, it said on India.
Industry lobby groups on Tuesday said the slowdown in India's GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2010-11 was mainly on account of high interest rate regime, aimed at taming inflation.
Boom, bust or a bit of both: as the jury bides time before ruling on the US 'recession', the economy's vital signs at a perplexing time of high-interest rates, still-punishing inflation, and surprisingly strong economic gains are a study of a growing debate over whether the world's largest economy is barrelling into a new downturn. With the US Federal Reserve's (Fed's) inflation fighters attempting the risky pursuit of 'pillow-soft landings' and its economy sending out mixed signals, if there is indeed a recession, it could spell trouble for domestic equities and corporate earnings growth.
In the last one month, the RBI has infused liquidity of Rs 2,70,000 crore (Rs 2,700 billion) by cutting the Cash Reserve Ratio (the amount banks must keep with the apex lender) by 350 basis points and Statutory Liquidity Ratio by 100 basis points. RBI has also reduced the short term lending rate (repo) by 150 basis points to 7.5 per cent from 9 per cent last month.
'Limited spillovers' to Asia's third-largest economy, even as world 'perilously close' to recession.
As the policy rate has seen a steady increase since May 2022, the percentage of loans offered at interest rates below 8 per cent have declined sharply, dropping from 53 per cent in March 2022 to 18 per cent by June 2023, according to a report by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The share of bank loans with interest rates of 10 per cent or higher rose from 22 per cent to 34 per cent during this period, reflecting the impact of a 250 basis point (bps) hike in the policy repo rate by the RBI's Monetary Policy Committee. In response to the rise in repo rate, 32 domestic banks have made corresponding upward revisions to their repo-linked external benchmark-based lending rates (EBLRs), aligning them with the magnitude of the rate hike.
Macroeconomic (macro) concerns, along with a cautious approach towards discretionary information technology (IT) spending, will see the revenue for Indian IT firms decelerate by 5 per cent through 2024-25 (FY25), from the highs of 12-18 per cent in 2022-23, said analysts from S&P Global Ratings. "The reason behind this slow growth is a macro slowdown. "Customers are cutting their discretionary IT spending, especially on projects that take longer to deliver quantifiable outcomes. "We also acknowledge that there are still strong economic headwinds for the next few years," said Spencer Ng, associate director, corporate ratings, S&P Global Ratings, over a call in a media briefing.
Strong macroeconomic headwinds causing turbulence in the $245-billion Indian IT industry are yet to calm down. Top Indian IT services companies are likely to post a decline or just marginal growth in sequential revenue in Q1FY24 because of a soft discretionary spending environment. Though the first quarter is seasonally strong for IT firms, "June 2023 will be an exception", according to analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities.
The country's Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry witnessed a consumption slowdown in the December quarter, with an overall "negative" volume growth, as consumers continue to reel under inflationary pressure, says a report. According to the report released by data analytics firm NielsenIQ on Thursday, in October-December, the FMCG industry grew 7.6 per cent in terms of value but its volume growth was (-) 0.3 per cent. "... Overall FMCG volume growth is negative, the absolute values, as well as volumes, continue to be above pre-Covid levels across markets," it said.
During April-June this fiscal, the Index of Industrial Production grew 10.1 per cent, as against 10.4 per cent in the year-ago period.
IT major Accenture's second straight cut in its revenue growth forecast for FY23 suggests there is more pain ahead for the Indian IT sector, say analysts. Accenture has lowered the top end of its FY23 growth guidance in constant currency (CC) to 9 per cent from 10 per cent earlier. The firm, which follows a September-August fiscal cycle, expects a 2-6 per cent CC growth in Q4 of FY23 (June-August 2023) versus the 6-10 per cent prior guidance.
Cement production contracted by 2.7 per cent as against an expansion of 6.2 per cent in October 2016.
So far this financial year, bank advances grew 10.7 per cent.
Domestic policies rather than the global turmoil is what will really affect growth prospects.
Amid rising geopolitical risks, a vast majority of Indian CEOs have indicated in a survey that they are reducing or planning to reduce operating costs, even as they are more upbeat than their global peers on their country's economic prospects. However, most of the companies do not plan to cut their headcount or salaries, found the annual Global CEO Survey released by consultancy giant PwC here on the first day of the World Economic Forum meeting on Monday. The survey also found that about four in ten CEOs (40 per cent of global and 41 per cent of India respondents) do not expect their companies to be economically viable in 10 years if they continue on their current path.
Industrial profit in China rose to 55 per cent in the first eight months of this year, according to new official figures released by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Notwithstanding expectations of a pick-up in construction activity during a seasonally strong January-March quarter (fourth quarter) of 2022-23 (FY23), analysts are cautiously optimistic about the building material sector - encompassing paints, pipes, wood panels, tiles, metals, and cement - as volatile input costs, coupled with fears of a global slowdown, are making demand projections uncertain. Against this backdrop, analysts suggest investors stay selective and pick stocks of companies with stronger brand recall, expanding distribution network, diversified product profile, healthier balance sheet, and sustainable cash flow. "The government's various proposals under Budget 2023-24 (FY24) may lead to the building material segment growing between 8 per cent and 12 per cent for the next five years.
Infrastructure sector growth fell by 1 per cent to 5 per cent in November 2004 as compared to the year-ago period, mainly due to the slowdown in growth of petroleum refining, electricity generation and production of finished steel.
Funding for Indian startups dropped by 33 per cent to $24 billion in 2022 as compared to the previous year though it was nearly double the amount recorded in 2019 or 2020, said a PwC India report on Wednesday. Global investors were still positive about the Indian startup ecosystem despite the global slowdown, as per the report titled 'Startup Tracker-CY 22'. "Funding for Indian startups in CY22 was nearly $24 billion, a drop of 33 per cent in comparison to CY21 but was still more than twice the funds raised in CY20 and CY19 each", it said.
India's economic growth rate slipped to 6.9 per cent in the second quarter this fiscal, the lowest in nine quarters.
Abbott India outperformed the Indian pharmaceutical market (IPM) with a year-on-year (YoY) growth of 23 per cent in February. The domestic market grew at a robust 20 per cent on a low base, primarily led by volume growth and price hikes. Abbott continued to outperform the sector in the anti-diabetic space with a growth of 20 per cent and key brands such as Thyronorm (hypothyroidism), biliary agent Udiliv, insulin Ryzodeg posted robust growth.
The global economy is expected to sharply decelerate to 1.5 per cent next year from 2.9 per cent in the current year due to the worsening downturn caused largely by the financial crisis in the United States, the United Nations agency for trade and development said on Wednesday.
Experts believe it will take another three to five years for Indian IT firms to move to a non-linear business model.
Very often, 'sentiment' drives prices well beyond what is warranted and it is hard to forecast market sentiment, explains Debashis Basu.
At a time when the market is betting on a 'higher for longer' global interest rate view, Accenture's (ACN) weak revenue forecast is a negative read-through for the Indian IT firms, according to analysts. The Dublin-based company sees its revenue growth at 2-5 per cent in constant currency (cc) for the financial year 2024 (FY24), below the pre-Covid levels of 5-8 per cent for FY17-20. The weak projection, thus, signals that slower demand is likely to persist this year, and any recovery is unlikely in the near-to-medium term, experts note.
In India, economic activity slowed substantially in 2019, with the deceleration most pronounced in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors, whereas government-related services sub-sectors received significant support from public spending, the Bank said.
For 2020 calendar year, it reduced the estimate by a similar measure to 6.7 per cent.
IMF said the repercussions from India's currency exchange initiative will likely persist through the first quarter of 2017.
Important source markets for inbound tourism such as Europe, the US and the UK have been reeling under slowdown pressures, thereby bringing down tourism.
With these savings rate and investment rates, we can sustain a growth rate of nine per cent without difficulty.
The economy will turn the corner in the next six months as the deceleration of the past several quarters has been arrested, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Monday.
India's exports in January dipped by 6.58 per cent to $32.91 billion, as against $35.23 billion in the same month last year, according to the data released by the commerce ministry on Wednesday. Trade deficit in January stood at $17.75 billion.
After the first quarter was washed out, exporters are now keeping their fingers crossed over a turnaround in outbound shipments to at least North America from September onwards. This comes even as other key destinations such as Europe may take longer to revive in FY24. Slowdown in key economies, as well as geopolitical tensions resulted in sluggish demand for Indian goods.
By any economic theory or doctrine, this is no Budget that supports economic recovery, whether through supporting aggregate demand, or through expansionary stimulus, declares Rathin Roy.
The new data comes a day after China and the US signed a long-awaited phase one deal, marking a ceasefire in the 18-month-long trade war which saw the world's two largest economies slap 25 per cent tariffs on about half a trillion-dollar worth of each other's exports. The world's second-largest economy grew by 6.1 per cent last year, its worst performance since 1990, but it remained above the psychologically important mark of six per cent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The Gross Value Added (GVA) in agriculture and allied activities is projected to clock its best growth in FY23 during the October-to-December quarter, at 3.7 per cent, on the back of a strong kharif harvest, according to the second advance estimates of national income. In the third quarter of FY22, GVA in the sector was 2.3 per cent at constant prices. At current prices, the growth in the third quarter of this financial year is projected at 8.6 per cent, which is almost at the same level in the corresponding quarter of FY22.
The average ticket size observed in jewellery retail dipped by 66 per cent to Rs 3,625 for Dhanteras and Diwali, while the same for apparel stores dipped 28 per cent to Rs 1,746.
Lower interest rates needed to boost manufacturing, officials say.
