India's GDP growth falls to 4.5% in Q3, P. Chidambaram hopes better days ahead

Hit by poor performance of farm, mining and manufacturing sector, GDP growth in the October-December period of the current financial year slipped to 4.5 per cent - decade's lowest quarterly growth. Concerned over the low economic growth, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said efforts are being made to achieve higher growth and hoped that GDP will grow by over 6 per cent in the next financial year.

The GDP had grown by 6 per cent in the October-December period of last fiscal.

The economic growth in the first nine months of this fiscal (April-December) stood at 5.1 per cent, lower than 6.6 per cent in the year-ago period.

The economy had grown by 5.5 per cent and 5.3 per cent in the first quarter and the second quarter, respectively, of 2012-13.

"The first half is 5.4. The second half must be below 5 if the prediction is 5 per cent for the annual growth," Chidambaram said.

"The growth rate for the next year, I am as confident as my Chief Economic Advisor advises me to be confident. I am as confident as the advice given by the Prime Minister Economic Advisory Council," he said.

The Economic Survey of 2012-13 tabled in Parliament yesterday has predicted a growth rate of 6.1-6.7 per cent for the next fiscal.

During October-December quarter of 2012-13, manufacturing sector grew marginally by 2.5 per cent, against 0.7 per cent growth in the same period of 2011-12, according to data released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) today.

Farm sector output expanded by just 1.1 per cent in the October-December period this fiscal, against 4.1 per cent in the same quarter last fiscal.

Mining and quarrying sector, however, showed some improvement and contracted by 1.4 per cent during the quarter, as against a decline in output by 2.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2011-12.

... contd.

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