8.2% GDP signals steady growth: DEA secretary

Hours after the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate for the first quarter of fiscal 2018-19 surged to 8.2 per cent, Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) Subhash Chandra Garg opined that the data signals "very steady, high growth path."

"With this quarter, I think the V-shaped recovery process is complete. From 8.1 per cent, we started reducing and now we have to come 8.2 per cent. I think this signals economic growth on a steady, high growth path," Garg said in a press conference on Friday.

As the manufacturing sector catapulted to a 13.5 percent of growth, complemented by cement and steel production, Garg said, "13.5 percent growth in manufacturing signals a very good turnaround of manufacturing. Coupled with manufacturing is the construction sector which also grew at 8.99 per cent. It is also indicated in cement, steel and other products consumption and growth. So all this indicates that the manufacturing is back on track and is growing at a very high pace."

Stressing on the growth of capital formation, the DEA secretary noted, "There has been a robust capital formation as we grew by 10 per cent in this quarter, building on the last quarter growth of 14.4 per cent. This is reflected in the investment in the economy. So, we had a 31 per cent investment rate last year and now it is 31.6 per cent, thanks to the gross capital formation."

"We predicted that the growth would be in the range of 7.7 to 7.5 per cent annually. I think we are reasonably confident now that we must exceed this higher end of this projection which we made, and therefore, Indian economy would be performing robustly, and, will definitely be the highest growing economy in the world," he added.

The Central Statistical Office (CSO) on Friday estimated that the GD for the first quarter of the year stood at 8.2 percent, with GDP at constant prices in the first quarter of 2018-19 estimated at Rs.33.74 lakh crore as against Rs.31.18 lakh crore in the same period last year.