India says 3Q growth faster than China’s at 7.3 percent

CSO has also revised upwards the GDP growth estimates for April-June and July-September quarters to 7.6 per cent and 7.7 per cent from earlier calculation of 7 per cent and 7.4 per cent, respectively.

Besides, IMF had said India will clock 7.3 per cent growth in 2015-16 and ADB projected it at 7.4 per cent. The slowing was in line with economists’ expectations.

India will release data on Monday showing it remains one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but economists are struggling to reconcile that rosy picture with ground realities like weak exports, investment, and flat corporate order books. The Chinese economy that is undergoing a fundamental shift grew just 6.8% in the three months to December, which was the slowest pace of expansion since 2009.

The government also forecast that GDP growth for the fiscal year ending in March 2016 would accelerate to 7.6 percent from a revised 7.2 percent a year earlier. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is preparing to deliver his third annual budget on February 29, a process that would be helped by accurate growth and tax revenue projections. The government is likely to face difficulties in maintaining its fiscal consolidation targets.

As a proposed wage increase for government employees is set to add an additional 0.65% of GDP to expenditure, the government has said that the commitment to further fiscal consolidation of 0.4% needs to be re-assessed.

“Confederation of Indian Industry looks forward to a reform-centric budget which would put in place bold measures to remove supply bottlenecks and in turn spark a virtuous cycle of investment and growth”, CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said in a statement here.

These funds held RS 1,74,828 crore of Indian listed stocks towards the end of December 2015, accounting for 8.8 percent of the foreign investor holding of Indian stocks.

The services sector growth was catapulted by 10.1 per cent growth in trade, hotels and communication, 9.9 per cent by financial sector and 7.5 per cent by the public administration.

Similarly, the GVA for mining and quarrying sector grew at 6.5 per cent in the quarter under review compared to 9.1 per cent growth in same period a year ago. For many years, India has been struggling to break out of a monotonous 5% growth in a quarter of a century.