MUMBAI, Mar 19: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Dr D Subbarao, in the Monetary policy Review, has said that India’s GDP growth in third quarter of 2012-13, at 4.5 per cent, was the weakest in the last 15 quarters.
What is worrisome is that the services sector growth, hitherto the mainstay of overall growth, has also decelerated to its slowest pace in a decade.
While overall industrial production growth turned positive in January, capital goods production and mining activity continued to contract.
The composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) declined in February, largely reflecting slower expansion in services. In the agriculture sector, the second advance estimates of kharif production indicates a decline in relation to the level last year.
However, that may be offset, at least partly, by the rabi output for which sowing has been satisfactory.
The year-on-year headline WPI inflation edged up to 6.8 per cent in February 2013 from 6.6 per cent in January, essentially reflecting the upward revisions effected to administered prices of
petroleum products. On the other hand, non-food manufactured products inflation, and its momentum, continued to ebb along the trajectory that began in September 2012, enabled by softening prices of metals, textiles and rubber products. Worryingly, retail
inflation continued on the upward path that set in from October 2012, with the new combined (rural and urban) CPI (Base: 2010=100)
inflation at a high of 10.9 per cent in February 2013 on sustained
price pressures from food items, especially cereals and proteins. Consequently, the divergence between wholesale and consumer price inflation continued to widen during the year, he added. (UNI)
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