[Ferro-Alloys.com] Growth in the Indian economy slowed sharply in the January-March period, eventhouh disruptions caused by the novel coronavirusCOVID-19 is hardly captured in the data for the fourth quarter of 2019-20. Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released the data for January to March quarter of the last financial year 2019-20 as well as the provisional estimates of the full-year GDP growth rate. It said that the Indian economy grew by 3.1% in the fourth quarter of FY20 compared to 4.1% in the preceding three months and 4.2% in 2019-20, lowest annual growth rate of GDP registered under the new GDP data series which uses 2011-12 as the base year, showing the continued weakening of India’s growth momentum even before it was hit by the Covid-19 induced lockdown in the last week of March. 

 

Among key sectors, agriculture and mining remained strong. As such, growth excluding agriculture was weaker. Agriculture sector grew at 5.9% in fourth quarter compared to 3.6% in third quarter. The sector grew 4% for the full year compared to 2.4% in the previous fiscal. The mining sector growth stood at 5.2% in fourth quarter compared to 2.2% in the previous three months. Mining grew 3.1% in 2019-20 against a contraction of 5.8% in the previous year. Manufacturing contracted by 1.4% in fourth quarter compared to a contraction of 0.8% in the previous three-month period. For the full year, the sector grew by 0.03%, compared to 5.7% in 2018-19. Construction contracted by 2.2% in fourth quarter compared to 0.04% in the preceding quarter. The sector grew by 1.3% in the full year compared to 6.1% in 2018-19

 

In addition to the release of the Q4 data, the government has also revised data for previous quarters downwards.

GDP growth for Q1 FY20 was revised to 5.2% from 5.6%

GDP qrowth for Q2 FY20 was revised to 4.4% from 5.1%

GDP growth for Q3 FY20 was revised to 4.1% from 4.7%

 

Source : STEELGURU