Weaker growth, better mix

Even as headline GDP growth slows, the pickup in investments is making it more balanced

The economy seems to have 'slowed' earlier than most forecasters expected, and even before the funding freeze for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) started hurting economic momentum. Most believed that this year would be a mirror image of the previous financial year, which had a very weak first half (disruptions caused by demonetisation and GST had pushed economic growth down to 6 per cent), and a stronger second half (7.4 per cent growth as the economy started to normalise). So, economists had pencilled in a strong first half in this financial year, helped by the ‘base effect’, and a slightly weaker