India's FY14 GDP growth to be 4.9%: Report

India Ratings & Research (Ind-Ra) expects India's GDP growth to remain sluggish at 4.9% in the current financial year, due to a mix of domestic and external factors.

According to India Ratings, the country's agricultural growth came to the rescue as without it, growth rate for this financial year would have been much lower.

Indian economy, which has been witnessing a growth slowdown since FY12, is expected to grow at 4.9% in the current financial year, well below its potential and last 10 years trend growth rate of 7.9%, India Ratings said.

"But for higher agricultural growth due to favourable monsoons, the GDP growth during FY14 would have been even lower," it said and added that it expects the agricultural sector to grow at 4.5% in this fiscal as against 1.8% in 2012-13.

In the 2013 monsoon season (June 1 to September 30), the country received 6% higher rainfall than the long period average.

"This is clearly good news not only for kharif crops but also for rabi crops as water storage in 85 important water reservoirs (as on August 29, 2013) was 35% more than last year," it said.

However, industry remains a drag for the economic growth.

According to India Ratings, industrial growth in FY14 is likely to be 2.2%, lower than 3.1% recorded in FY13.

Moreover, the services sector which was the bellwether of growth and had recorded double-digit growth from FY06 to FY10 is also facing "heat".

The services sector has begun dwindling since FY11, it said.

India Ratings expects the sector's growth to slow down to 6.3% y-o-y in FY14 from 6.6% y-o-y in FY13.

"As the largest sector of the economy, it has been quite resilient in the past. Even during the year of global financial crisis (FY09), when the overall GDP growth of India fell down to 6.7%, it grew at 10%," it said.

Although the services sector continues to be the fastest growing sector of the economy, it is also facing heat due to its strong linkage with the agricultural and industrial sectors on the domestic front and the economies of US and EU on the external front, it added.