No green shoots visible in Indian economy
New Delhi, December 31
Showing no signs of improvement, the output of eight core infrastructure industries contracted for the fourth consecutive month in November by 1.5%, according to official data released on Tuesday.
Fiscal deficit hits 115% of Budget Estimate
The country’s fiscal deficit hit 114.8% of 2019-20 Budget Estimate at Rs 8.07 lakh crore at the end of November
The government has estimated the fiscal deficit for the current financial year at Rs 7.03 lakh crore, aiming to restrict the deficit at 3.3% of the GDP
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Since August, the eight core industries are recording negative growth. The output of coal, crude oil, natural gas, steel, and electricity declined by 2.5%, 6%, 6.4%, 3.7% and 5.7%, respectively, according to the data. The eight core sectors had expanded by 3.3% in November 2018.
The growth rate of cement production dropped to 4.1% from 8.8% in November 2018.
The output of refinery products and fertilizers increased by 3.1% and 13.6%, respectively, in November 2019 over the year-ago month.
CAD narrows to 0.9% of GDP
- Current account deficit (CAD) narrowed to 0.9% of GDP in the
September 2019 quarter, on account of lower trade deficit
It had stood at 2.9% of GDP in the corresponding quarter of 2018-19
The CAD had printed 2% of GDP in the June 2019 quarter
During the April-November period, core industries recorded flat growth (zero per cent) against 5.1% in the year-ago period. Commenting on the data, ICRA Ltd said: “We expect the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) to report a modest growth in November 2019 after having contracted since September 2019”.
These industries comprise 40.27% of the weight of items included in the IIP.
While crude oil output remained in the negative since November 2018, natural gas production was in negative since April this year. Similarly, coal output was declining since July this year. — PTI
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