Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: India’s economic growth accelerated to 8.4 percent in the third quarter of 2023-24, mainly due to good performance by the manufacturing, mining quarrying, and construction sectors.
The Indian economy recorded a growth of 8.4 percent in the third quarter of this fiscal (October-December 2023), according to data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Thursday.
The NSO, in its second advance estimate of national accounts, pegged the country’s growth at 7.6 percent for 2023-24.
Earlier, it had projected a growth of 7.3 percent for the current fiscal in its first advance estimates released in January 2024.
The NSO also revised the GDP growth for 2022-23 from its earlier estimate of 7.2 percent to 7 percent.
India’s GDP growth rate of 8.4 percent in Q3FY24 is higher than the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) estimate of 6.5 percent, according to the NSO, a part of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
Indian economy remained resilient with a robust 7.6 percent growth rate of GDP in FY 2023-24 over and above 7 percent growth rate in FY2022-23.
The double-digit growth rate of the construction sector (10.7 percent), followed by a good growth rate of the manufacturing sector (8.5 percent) boosted the GDP growth in 2023-24.
Earlier, India Ratings and Research had predicted the growth rate in the quarter would be 6.5 percent. SBI Research said it would be in the range of 6.7-6.9 per cent.
On the back of double-digit growth in the manufacturing sector (11.6 percent) sector, followed by a good growth rate in the construction sector (9.5 percent), the real GDP grew by 8.4 percent in Q3FY24.
During his RBI Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announcement earlier this month, Governor Shaktikanta Das said that headwinds from geopolitical tensions, volatility in international financial markets, and geoeconomic fragmentation will continue to pose risks to the economic outlook.