India GDP Growth Climbs To 7.8% In June Quarter

(RTTNews) - India's economy grew at a faster pace in the three months to June period, mainly led by the services sector, preliminary estimates from the National Statistical Office showed on Thursday. Gross domestic product grew 7.8 percent year-on-year in the April to June quarter, which was a tad faster than the 7.7 percent expansion economists had forecast. In the same quarter last year, growth was 13.1 percent.

The Indian economy had grown 6.1 percent in the March quarter. Among industrial sectors, finance, real estate and professional services industry logged the biggest growth of 12.2 percent. This was followed by 9.2 percent growth in trade, hotels, transport, media and communication sector. Manufacturing grew 4.7 percent and construction sector expanded 7.9 percent. The mining and quarrying industry grew 5.8 percent and the farm sector output increased 3.5 percent.

In July, the International Monetary Fund had raised India's growth projection for 2023 to 6.1 percent from 5.9 percent. The Chinese economy is expected to grow 5.2 percent this year. Latest GDP data confirm a resilient first half of the year for India's economy in the face of the Reserve Bank of India's policy tightening, Capital Economics economist Thamashi De Silva said. "More timely data point to a slight cooling in growth but India will remain a global outperformer," the economist added. Capital Economics forecast growth of 6.3 percent for India this year versus 6.7 percent in 2022. Separately, the commerce ministry released provisional data on Thursday that showed that the combined output of the eight core industries grew 8.0 percent in July after an 8.3 percent increase in June. The eight core industries include coal, steel, natural gas, cement, electricity, refinery products, fertilizers and crude oil. Among the eight industries, coal production logged the biggest growth of 14.9 percent year-on-year in July, followed by steel manufacturing with a 13.5 percent gain.