Economic slowdown has bottomed out, says DEA Secy

"We have already bottomed out. Certainly, there's an uptick; whether it translates into higher demand remains to be seen; will have to wait to see the specific impact on national account numbers", DEA Secretary Atanu Chakraborty said after the release of Q3 GDP numbers.

The Indian economy grew 4.7 per cent in the third quarter ended December 31, 2019, the National Statistics Office said on Friday.

The GDP growth has now slowed to a nearly seven-year low of 4.7 per cent in the quarter ending December 2020.

The National Statistical Office (NSO) has, however, upwardly revised GDP growth estimates for the first quarter of 2019-20 to 5.6 per cent (from 5 per cent), and for the second quarter to 5.1 per cent (from 4.5 per cent).

The NSO estimates the GDP growth for the whole fiscal at 5 per cent. The gross domestic product data released on Friday showed consumer demand, private investment and exports all struggling, while higher government spending and an improvement in rural demand lent support.

The annual GDP figure for the September quarter was ramped up from an earlier estimate of 4.5%, while the April-June reading was similarly lifted to 5.6% from 5.0%, data released by the Ministry of Statistics showed on Friday.

The government took several steps earlier this month to try to bolster economic growth, including increasing state spending on infrastructure. But many economists expect the impact of those efforts to be outweighed by the global fallout from the coronavirus epidemic that began in China.

Core sector grew by 2.2% in January as power generation has picked up.