Skip to main content

JP Morgan: India's lowest growth in 5 years, 5.8%, worrying; recovery may be slow

 
Commenting on India’s January-March 2019 GDP growth, which "surprised sharply to the downside, printing at a 5-year low of 5.8%", JP Morgan, the American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in New York City, has said that it has not just "dragged down full-year growth also to a five-year low of 6.8%".
It underlines, "The GDP undershoot reinforces the discernable slowdown that is currently underway. Growth has largely been flying on one engine in recent years – private consumption – and that has gotten progressively exhausted."
Worse, in its commentary, authored by Sajjid Z Chinoy and Toshi Jain, who are with the top MNC's Emerging Markets Asia Economic and Policy Research wing, say, even this is "buffeted by sustained rural distress and a significant tightening of financial conditions amongst the Non Bank Financial Companies (NBFC), which have largely been financing consumption."
Continue the JP Morgan experts, as for public investment, it suffers from "lack of fiscal space with the total public sector borrowing requirement rising to almost 9% of GDP", and while exports bounced back strongly in 2018-19, they "are likely to slow meaningfully as global uncertainty rises (especially after the US has opened up a second flank in its trade war) and global growth momentum slows."
Giving figures on how Gross Value Added in agriculture and industry have been going down over the last one year, JP Morgan predicts, "Slowing consumption growth at home along with a cloudy outlook for exports, creates the worrying prospect of some hysteresis and suggests growth is likely to recover only slowly in the coming quarters."

Comments

TRENDING

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.  I don't know who owns this site, for there is nothing on it in the About Us link. It merely says, the Nashik Corporation  site   "is an educational and news website of the municipal corporation. Today, education and payment of tax are completely online." It goes on to add, "So we provide some of the latest information about Property Tax, Water Tax, Marriage Certificate, Caste Certificate, etc. So all taxpayer can get all information of their municipal in a single place.some facts about legal and financial issues that different city corporations face, but I was least interested in them."  Surely, this didn't interest...

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

Beyond the 'plum' posting: Why the caste lens still defines bureaucratic success

Following my recent blog on former IAS bureaucrat Atanu Chakraborty’s sudden exit as non-executive chairman of HDFC Bank, a few colleagues from the Gujarat cadre — mostly those I interacted with during my Gandhinagar stint (1997–2012) as the Times of India representative — reacted rather sharply. Most of them sent their responses directly on WhatsApp, touching upon on the merits and demerits of Chakraborty’s controversial move. One former IAS officer, a Dalit, however, went further, raising a broader question: why do some officials like Chakraborty secure plum post-retirement assignments, while others are overlooked?