Poll predicts 7.5% GDP growth in July-September quarter

Growth seen picking up from 7.1% in April-June

India's economy probably picked up steam in the July-September quarter on strong demand, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi's surprise currency crackdown this month will likely dent growth in coming months, a Reuters poll found.

While developed economies have wallowed in lacklustre activity, Asia's third-largest economy has maintained a resilient pace of expansion in recent years, eclipsing China.
 

That trend likely continued in the last quarter, according to the median consensus of 35 economists polled over the past week.

They forecast India's nearly $2-trillion economy expanded 7.5 per cent in July-September from the same period a year ago, accelerating from a 15-month low of 7.1 per cent in the previous quarter. Forecasts ranged from 6.5 per cent to 8.7 per cent.

"We expect GDP growth to have recovered...supported by a rise in private consumption. Sharp revisions in central government employees' salaries and pensions likely supported domestic demand," Sarah Hewin, chief economist at Standard Chartered, said in a note. Private surveys showed business activity at manufacturing and services firms accelerated during the three months to September as broadly steady prices helped drive a surge in domestic and foreign demand.

Cooling inflation in recent months gave the Reserve Bank of India room to unexpectedly cut the benchmark repo rate by 25 basis points last month to 6.25 per cent, a six-year low.

GDP Growth

A separate Reuters poll showed another rate cut was likely in the first three months of 2017. Lower interest rates would help the Indian government in its efforts to boost economic growth to above 8 per cent, which is the bare minimum needed to provide jobs to around a million people who enter the workforce every month.

However, Modi's shock move on November 8 to withdraw ~500 and ~1,000 notes as legal tender to fight tax evasion, corruption and forgery have caused disruptions across the economy, leaving companies' cash-reliant supply chains in tatters and depressing consumer demand. That should slow growth in coming months, economists said.

In the year to March 2017, the cash crunch is estimated to pull down India's gross domestic product (GDP) growth from last year's 7.6 per cent by as much as 4.1 percentage points.