Growing up, with uncertainties
All that changed last Friday, when fresh estimates for GDP growth in 2024-25 and Q3 estimates for the current fiscal suddenly showed growth in a new, much brighter light. Not only is growth in Q3 (6.2%) a marked improvement over the previous quarter's upwardly revised 5.8%, but growth for FY25 has also been revised upward. From 6.4% in FAE released on Jan 7, growth in 2024-25 is now pegged higher at 6.5%.
Even better, across-the-board upward revisions in growth estimates for the previous two fiscals — from 8.2% to 9.2% in 2023-24 (the highest in the previous 12 years, except for 2021-22, when GDP grew 9.7% on account of rebound from Covid), and from 7% to 7.6% in 2022-23 — along with upward revisions for Q1 and Q2 of FY25 show the economy in fine fettle.
All this should normally call for uncorking the champagne. At a time when World Bank and IMF are lowering growth estimates in each successive release of their reports, India seems to be an exception to the global norm of lower growth. But can this best-of-all-worlds scenario continue?
With Donald Trump in the saddle in the US, it's next to impossible to count on the good times continuing. Or make any predictions. In the words of baseball great Yogi Berra, 'The future ain't what it used to be.' That perhaps explains GoI's relatively muted response to these exceptional growth numbers. CEA V Anantha Nageswaran pointed to the near-term global economic outlook being 'influenced by trade policies of major economies amid a slowing disinflation' that 'may fuel