Two days before the second quarter GDP numbers were released by the government, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman told Parliament that although the economy was facing a slowdown, fears of a recession were unwarranted. She attributed the slowing growth to the so-called ‘twin balance sheet’ crisis–the huge corpus of bad loans on the one hand and highly indebted corporates on the other. On November 29, the worst fears of the government came true. India’s GDP growth plunged to a 26-quarter low of 4.5 per cent in the July-September quarter of 2019-20 as manufacturing contracted, investments weakened and consumption demand fell. GDP growth rate was 8.1 per cent in the same period a year ago. In the first quarter of this fiscal, it was just 5 per cent, already the slowest in six years.
What is of utmost concern is that the economy has not rebounded despite the spate of measures introduced by Sitharaman’s finance ministry over the past few months, primarily targeting the real estate, automobile and banking sector, and also reducing corporate taxes steeply to spur investments. In the first quarter itself, there were indications that more bleak news was on the way. Government data released on November 11 showed that factory output, as indicated by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), fell for the second consecutive month in September to 4.3 per cent, the lowest in eight years. The troubled auto sector continues its rough ride. Data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) stated that total vehicle sales declined by 12.8 per cent to 2,176,136 units in October from 2,494,345 units sold in the corresponding month of the previous year. Meanwhile, domestic car sales were down almost 6.34 per cent, 173,649 units compared to 185,400 in October 2018. The festive season has also given no reprieve. Several news reports point to as much as a 40 per cent dip during the festive season, with some traders not even filling their inventory ahead of the season.
“The private part of the GDP is not doing well, it is the government that is supporting the GDP growth,” says D.K. Joshi, chief economist with Crisil. “Government consumption has grown at over 15 per cent. Apart from this, the other engines are not firing,” he adds. Moreover, nominal growth has fallen sharply, which shows a demand slowdown, he adds. The good thing, according to him, is that the government has started spending.
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Private investment is not picking up as the banking sector is still in the doldrums. At one point, state-owned banks had shied away from lending to large-scale projects; the situation now is that no corporates are coming forward to put in any large-scale investment. With demand slowing in a variety of sectors including auto, FMCG (fast moving consumer goods), consumer durables and retail (with the exception of online sales driven by large discounts), private investors have good reason to hold back large scale investments. Private sector capex announcements were near historic lows in the quarter ended September, the Centre for Monitoring India Economy (CMIE) said in October. Private sector investments fell 70 per cent compared to the year-ago period. CMIE says the investment slowdown is linked to the persistence of stalled projects, which have dampened the animal spirits in the economy. Moreover, the health of the shadow banking sector still remains precarious, cutting off precious money supply to both large and small enterprises to fund operations and growth. Growth in the core sector for October further contracted to 5.8 per cent from the 5.2 per cent seen in September, dragged down by a de-growth in electricity consumption.
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“I just want to highlight that 32 steps were taken by me. Every step that is pertaining to different sectors, whether it is MSME (micro, small and medium enterprises) or banks… these steps I review on a weekly basis,” Sitharaman had told Parliament. However, the issue seems to be that most of the measures taken by the government so far support growth only in the medium-to-long term. Also, as these measures were an effort to reduce the cost of goods and services, they are essentially a supply-side response to revive growth. What is needed is to stimulate demand by putting more disposable income in the hands of rural and urban households.
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Most keenly watched now will be how the second half of the fiscal performs, and what holds for the full year. Predictions have been bleak so far. Already, there has been a spate of data revisions. Moody’s Investors Service cut India’s GDP growth forecast for 2019-20 to 5.8 per cent, from the 6.2 per cent it had projected earlier. The decline, it said, was due to an investment-led slowdown that had widened to impact consumption, driven by financial stress among rural households and weak job creation. The RBI, too, has lowered India’s growth forecast for 2019-20, to 6.1 per cent from the 6.9 per cent it had projected earlier. The World Bank has cut India’s GDP growth forecast for 2019-20 by the most among South Asian nations, to 6 per cent compared to 7.5 per cent it projected in April this year, citing a deceleration in local demand, and a weak financial sector. The International Monetary Fund has forecast a 6.1 per cent growth for this fiscal.
With the economy continuing its slow run, the RBI is expected to further cut lending rates in its next monetary policy review in the first week of December. Already, the RBI has cut key rates by a cumulative 135 basis points since Shaktikanta Das became governor in December 2018.
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source https://cvrnewsdirect.com/a-downward-spiral-india-today-insight-news/
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