Indian economy grows 7.8% in Q1

Indian economy expanded 7.8 percent in the first quarter of 2011 from a year earlier, lower than market expectation of 8.2 percent, according to India's Central Statistics Office on Tuesday.


This marks the slowest quarterly growth since the first quarter of 2010 and confirms the slowdown of Indian economy with monetary tightening.


Meanwhile, India's GDP increased by 8.5 percent in the fiscal year 2010-2011 ending March 31, slightly lower than previous estimate of 8.6 percent.


The slower growth mainly resulted from poor performance of mining and quarrying, manufacturing and some service sectors.


Agriculture sector realized a 6.6 percent growth in last fiscal year as against earlier estimate of 5.4 percent and the tepid growth of 0.4 percent in previous fiscal year.


The manufacturing sector grew 8.3 percent in fiscal year 2010- 2011 compared with 8.8 percent rise a year earlier, and the growth of mining and quarrying sector slowed to 5.8 percent from 6.9 percent in the previous fiscal year.


The growth with community, social and personal services stood at 7 percent in 2010-2011 from 11.8 percent in the previous fiscal year.


Still, the construction sector maintained 17.6 percent of growth in the first quarter of 2011, which is in line with that of previous four quarters.


Indian per capita net national income in real terms climbed to 796.4 U.S. dollars in 2010-2011, 6.5 percent higher than the previous fiscal year.


Indian economy is expected to grow 8 percent in the current fiscal year much lower than earlier official estimate of between 8. 75 and 9.25 percent, according to a report by Indian central bank in early May.


Amid high international commodity prices and continued monetary tightening, Indian government has informally adjusted down its GDP growth to around 8.5 percent in fiscal year 2011-2012.


Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently expressed his confidence that the national economy will expand 8.5 percent in the current fiscal year banking on normal monsoon.
(Source:http://news.xinhuanet.com)