PMEAC pegs GDP growth rate at 6.4 per cent in 2013-14

Improvement in performance of agriculture and manufacturing sectors is expected to push the economic growth rate to 6.4 per cent in 2013-14 from 5 per cent in the previous fiscal, PM's economic advisory panel said today.
"Economy will grow at higher rate from now. We projected growth rate of 6.4 per cent in the current fiscal", Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council (PMEAC) Chairman C Rangarajan said while releasing the Economic Review for 2012-13 here.
Economic growth rate had slipped to decade's low of 5 per cent in 2012-13 mainly on account of the impact of the global financial woes.
Rangarajan hoped that the GDP estimate for 2012-13 would be revised upwards from 5 per cent estimated in February by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO).

The improvement in the growth rate in the current fiscal, he said, would mainly be on account of better performance of agriculture, industry and services sectors.
The agriculture sector, he said, was likely to grow at 3.5 per cent compared to 1.8 per cent in the previous fiscal. In case of industry and services sectors, the growth rates have been projected at 4.9 per cent (3.1 per cent in 2012-13) and 7.7 per cent (6.6 per cent), respectively.

Rangarajan said the action taken by the government to speed up project clearances since September would be visible in the current fiscal.

On the spiralling current account deficit (CAD), Rangarajan said it is likely to come down to 4.7 per cent of the GDP in 2013-14 from about 5.1 per cent in the previous fiscal.
The CAD, which is the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange, shot up to an historic high of 6.7 per cent of the GDP for the quarter ended December 2012.