Economy will witness higher growth in coming quarters, says FM Arun Jaitley

NEW DELHI: Lauding the upward movement of the GDP number for the second quarter of 2017-18, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the rise in growth after five quarters marks the reversal of the trend and the economy will witness high growth rates in the coming quarters.

"Last five quarters have witnessed downward trend. The 6.3 per cent rise during Q2 of 2017-18 marks the reversal of that trend. This additionally indicates that the impact of demonetisation and Goods and Services Tax is now behind us and hopefully in the coming quarters will take an upward trajectory," Jaitley said at a press meet here on Thursday. He said while this was broadly an initial analysis of the figures, "hopefully we can take to higher growth rate in the coming quarters." Jaitley said if one looked at the overall picture since May 2014, out of 13 quarters the economy clicked 7 per cent growth eight times. "We have fallen behind 6 per cent only once. This marks a reversal and it has been largely enabled by manufacturing while investment has moved up. These are the two significant features." Official data released revealed that a rise in the manufacturing sector's output pushed India's growth rate higher to 6.3 per cent during the second quarter of 2017-18 breaking a five quarters slump. On a sequential basis, India's GDP growth for Q2 of the current fiscal went up to 6.3 per cent, from 5.7 per cent reported during the first quarter of 2017-18. In a statement the finance ministry said the real GDP growth for the second quarter of fiscal 2017-18, just released by the CSO, is estimated at 6.3 percent, a substantial increase from 5.7 percent in the first quarter. Real Gross Value Added growth has shown a similar increase from 5.6 percent in the first quarter to 6.1 percent in the second quarter, despite a deceleration in agricultural growth from 2.3 percent in the first quarter to 1.7 percent in the second. The deceleration in overall growth witnessed since the first quarter of the last fiscal year has been reversed, the statement added. "The acceleration in growth this quarter has been helped by a rapid growth in manufacturing which increased from 1.2 percent in the first quarter to 7 percent in the second quarter. Robust growth of 7.6 percent in electricity and other utilities, and 9.9 percent in trade, transportation and communications also powered this acceleration," the ministry said. Overall, the services sector recorded a growth of 7.1 percent in the second quarter. It stated the rate of growth of gross fixed capital formation has also increased from 1.6 percent in the first quarter to 4.7 percent in the second quarter. Real private consumption growth has broadly held steady at 6.5 percent. "In summary, the economy now seems to have weathered the transitional challenges experienced earlier in the year and appears poised for a durable recovery going forward."