The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday unexpectedly hit a pause button on cutting interest rates as it gave more importance to prevailing inflation pressure and rising food prices over a worrying slowdown in the economy.
In October, the RBI's MPC stuck to its "accommodative stance" by reducing its key lending rate to 5.15 per cent, the lowest in around a decade. The record low repo was set at 4.75 per cent in April 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis.
Amid attack by the opposition over the state of the country's economy, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey said in the Lok Sabha on Monday that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has no relevance and it should not be treated as 'Bible, Ramayan and Mahabharat'.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday the GDP growth rate of 4.5 per cent was unacceptable and worrisome, and urged his successor Narendra Modi to set aside "deep-rooted suspicion" of society and nurse India back to harmonious, mutually trustworthy society that can help the economy soar.
India's July-September quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data, scheduled for a release on November 29, will be important as headline growth has already slipped to a six-year low, said Singapore's DBS Bank in its daily report on Tuesday.
India's GDP growth had dipped to about a six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter of the fiscal.
Fitch said it was revising the fiscal deficit forecast as revenue collection is likely to fall far short of the projections in the FY2019/20 Union Budget due to weak goods and services tax (GST) and corporate income tax collections.
The new definition is likely to be effected through an amendment to the MSME Act and may lead to further improvement in India's ease of doing business scenario.
China's growth slumped to 6 per cent in the third quarter of 2019, its lowest level in nearly three decades, as the world's second largest economy struggled to overcome the impact of a bruising trade war with the US and sluggish domestic demand, according to official data released on Friday.
The IMF has downgraded India's GDP growth projection to 6.1 per cent in 2019. The new projection is 1.2 per cent down from its April projections. According to IMF, India will grow at 7.3 per cent in 2019. However, three months later it projected a slower growth rate for India in 2019, a downward revision of 0.3 per cent.
Moody's attributed the deceleration to an investment-led slowdown that has broadened into consumption, driven by financial stress among rural households and weak job creation.
"India's growth forecast for fiscal year 2019 (FY20) is lowered to 6.5 per cent after growth slowed markedly to 5 per cent in the first quarter, April–June," said the Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2019 Update.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July projected a slower growth rate for India in 2019 and 2020, a downward revision of 0.3 per cent for both the years, saying its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will now grow respectively at the rate of 7 per cent and 7.2 per cent, reflecting a weaker-than-expected outlook for domestic demand.
India's economic growth is "much weaker" than expected, the IMF said on Thursday, attributing the reasons to corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty and lingering weaknesses in some non-bank financial companies.
Priyanka Gandhi has launched a scathing attack on the Modi government vis-a-vis economic slowdown. "The economy is falling into a deep abyss of recession. The sword is hanging on the livelihood of lakhs of Indians," Priyanka Gandhi said.
Former president Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said education is the foundation for the happiness of the people and is as important as the gross domestic product (GDP) of a country.
Just a week back, a plunge in domestic private consumption demand, slump in manufacturing, halving of merchandise exports growth, and a high-base effect from last year gnawed away at first-quarter growth which came in at 5 per cent.
Former finance minister, P Chidambaram on Tuesday mocked the Modi government on the country's slow economic growth. Chidambaram was questioned by the media about his extended CBI custody outside Delhi court premises when Chidambaram said "5%, GDP is 5%" pointing towards the media.
Noting the gloomy start to the current fiscal with a dismal 5 per cent growth in the first quarter, broking house Kotak Equities on Tuesday also cut down India's 2019-20 GDP gorwth estimate to 5.8 per cent and said it sees the RBI cutting its key interest rate by 40 basis points (bps) in the central bank's October monetary policy review.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra told a press conference that Indian economy is doing "quite well" despite a global slowdown, adding that the Modi government in its six years has laid a "formal foundation" with measures like the GST and tax reforms.
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