Soutik Biswas of BBC reports that the latest GDP numbers from India paint a sobering picture. Biswas writes:
Is the world’s fastest-growing big economy losing steam?
The latest GDP numbers paint a sobering picture. Between July and September, India’s economy slumped to a seven-quarter low of 5.4%, well below the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) forecast of 7%.
While it is still robust compared with developed nations, the figure signals a slowdown.
Economists attribute this to several factors. Consumer demand has weakened, private investment has been sluggish for years and government spending – an essential driver in recent years – has been pulled back. […]
The government remains upbeat over the India story: banks are strong, forex reserves are robust, finances stable and extreme poverty has declined. Chief economic adviser V Anantha Nageswaran says the latest GDP figure should not be over-interpreted. “We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the underlying growth story remains intact,” he said at a recent meeting.
Clearly the pace of growth could do with some picking up. That is why scepticism lingers. “There’s no nation as ambitious for so long without taking [adequate] steps to fulfill that ambition,” says Ms Sengupta. “Meanwhile, the headlines talk of India’s age and decade – I’m waiting for that to materialise.”
Read more here.
