Expect economic growth to improve further in Oct-Mar: Industry

With India's growth improving to 6.3 per cent in July-September, industry bodies today said the economy is on a solid recovery path and may fare better in the second half of 2017-18 as businesses adjust to GST.
The expansion reversed five quarters of slackening GDP growth and came on the back of an improved show by manufacturing.
The gross domestic product (GDP) growth had hit a three- year low of 5.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2017-18. It was 7.5 per cent in the September quarter of 2016-17.
"The rebound in GDP growth to 6.3 per cent, after the uninspiring performance of the previous quarter, is noteworthy and a great confidence booster," CII Director General Chandrajit Banerjee said. "The revival of the GDP growth print reinforces the perception that the economy is in a robust recovery phase and the short-term disruptions caused by demonetisation and GST are behind us."

He is optimistic that the economic performance will be better in the second half as companies move to execute projects because of improved demand.
Ficci President Pankaj Patel said the growth numbers are in sync with the expectations and reaffirm that signs of recovery are in sight.

"We are confident of moving to a seamless GST (Goods and Services Tax) regime in a few months from now," Patel said, adding that this is a good opportunity to further build on the confidence levels.
The monetary policy announcement by the RBI next week, he added, will be the perfect timing to push up sentiment, suggesting that the government should look at further consolidation of reforms in the upcoming Budget for more private investment.

"The 6.3 per cent growth in GDP for the second quarter comes as a big relief to India Inc against the backdrop of quite subdued performance of the previous quarter even if the economic expansion is yet to recover its robustness," Assocham Secretary General D S Rawat said.
"Manufacturing has emerged as the bright spot at 7 per cent, but agriculture remains an area of concern with a mere 1.7 per cent (expansion) in the second quarter against 2.3 per cent in the previous quarter. Setbacks in the agri performance can have a cascading impact on consumer inflation," he added.

Rawat expressed hope that going forward, problems relating to the GST rollout will be settled and the third and fourth quarters should record better performance.