Data recap: GST gloom, capex slowdown, startup funding

livemint.com:

7.7%to ₹1.74 trillion in June, which is the slowest pace growth since June 2021. The growth in May was 10%. The growth has been lucklustre in the past two months when compared to the average growth of 11.7% recorded in 2023-24.

Amid the ongoing funding winter, startups has had a good June in terms of funding and deals. Private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) pumped $1.6 billion in June, which was more than double the funding seen in the same month last year, Mint reported. Moreover, the higher funding came from fewer deals (62 in June 2024 as opposed to 64 in June 2023).

While June data provides silver lining, the funding in the January-June period in 2024 was still down 24.3% from the same period last year. 97.9%: This is the share of ₹2,000 notes in circulation that has been returned to the Reserve Bank of India so far. The central bank had announced the withdrawal of this denomination of banknotes in May last year, nearly seven years after it was introduced during demonetisation to meet the currency requirements of the economy.

The printing of the notes were stopped in 2018-19 but withdrawal from circulation started last year. New project announcements plunged to multi-year lows in the April-June quarter of 2024-25, showed provisional data from the project-tracking database of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Mint reported. While private companies continued to lead in the June quarter, with their investments worth ₹35,206 crore, they fell below ₹1 trillion for the first time since the June quarter of 2020.