At 7.3% in 2023-24, India set to remain fastest-growing major economy

The Indian economy is expected to grow 7.3 per cent in the current financial year 2023-24, remaining the fastest-growing major economy, the National Statistics Office said on Friday.

However, these are early projections for 2023-24. Improved data coverage, actual tax collections, expenditures incurred on subsidies, and data revisions made by source agencies would have a bearing on subsequent revisions of these estimates.

India’s economy grew 7.2 per cent in 2022-23 and 8.7 per cent in 2021-22.
The first advance estimates of GDP come after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised its growth forecast last month by 50 basis points to 7 per cent from an earlier estimate of 6.5 per cent.

The upward revision by the RBI and the NSO comes on the heels of India reporting more-than-expected July-September quarter growth.

The Indian economy grew 7.6 per cent during the July-September quarter of the current financial year 2023-24, remaining the fastest-growing major economy. India’s GDP growth for the April-June quarter grew 7.8 per cent.

Strong rabi crops sowing despite the late harvest of kharif crops in some states; manufacturing sector is gaining strength with easing input cost pressures; and a pick-up in demand conditions, according to RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das, were some of the reasons for the revision in 2023-24 growth projections.

Further, NSO estimates showed that the manufacturing sector is estimated to expand 6.5 per cent in 2023-24, compared to 1.3 per cent the preceding fiscal.

Construction sector output is expected to grow 10.7 per cent, up from 10 per cent in the previous year, NSO data showed.