Reality-Check Of The Economy

The first few months of 2019 have seen the lowest new investment proposals in India in the last 14 years.

- Kuntala Sarkar

The ‘Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’ report states investments in Q4 of FY 2019 added only ₹9.5 lakh crore. These figures are unlikely to experience any significant change in the upcoming quarters of FY 20 This is likely to impact investment rates negatively.

The ‘Annual Report - 2018-19’ of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) states, “India’s real GDP growth clocked an average of 7.7% during 2014-18 and 8% in Q1 of 2018-19, but it began to shed momentum through the rest of 2018-19.” Significantly, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects global growth to be sluggish as it may drop to 3.2% in 2019 from 3.6% in the previous year and this will negatively impact the Indian economy. The RBI also reports, “The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) growth decelerated during 2018-19 to a three-year low of 3.8% and this was driven by deceleration in manufacturing.” Only India’s macroeconomic stability has been a point of hope and inflation stayed below the target of 4% for FY 19.