The Hindu : Business : GDP growth pegged at 9 per cent in 2007-08

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 31, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Business

Business

GDP growth pegged at 9 per cent in 2007-08

Special Correspondent

Per capita income at current prices increased by 12.7 per cent to Rs. 33,283

NEW DELHI: The Indian economy is estimated to have clocked a growth of nine per cent in 2007-08, same as projected earlier, mainly on account of high growth witnessed in sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, trade, real estate, hospitality and communications.

Evidently, as per the quick estimates of national income released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) here on Friday, the Central Government has maintained its earlier growth projections for 2007-08 as the economy continued to grow at a decent pace during the fiscal and the ripple effect of the global financial crisis showed up only from October 2008 onwards.

According to the CSO data, although the nine per cent GDP (gross domestic product) growth during 2007-08 is a tad lower than the 9.7 per cent growth notched up in the previous fiscal, the fact remains that it would be for the third year in a row that the country’s economy posted a growth rate of nine per cent and above.

Starting from a GDP growth base of 7.5 per cent in 2004-05, the economy grew by 9.5 per cent in 2005-06 and followed up with a higher rate of 9.7 per cent in 2006-07. For 2007-08, the Government had projected a growth rate of nine per cent in May last year.

The CSO data has revealed that the sectors that helped in maintaining a high GDP growth during 2007-08 were agriculture which grew by 4.9 per cent (against 4 per cent in 2006-07), manufacturing by 8.2 per cent (11.8 per cent), real estate and business services by 11.7 per cent, and transport, storage and communication by 15.5 per cent.

During 2007-08, the per capita income (at current prices) increased by 12.7 per cent to Rs. 33,283 from Rs. 29,524 in the previous fiscal. However, in real terms (at 1999-2000 prices), it grew by 7.6 per cent to Rs. 24,295 during the year. The rate of gross domestic savings (at current prices) during the year increased to 37.7 per cent of the GDP from 35.7 per cent in 2006-07, the data said. Likewise, the rate of gross capital formation increased to 39.1 per cent from 36.9 per cent in the previous fiscal.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business

News Update

Stories in this Section