The global mood appears to be getting worse with each passing week as is evidenced by consensus growth forecasts for major areas such as the US, Japan and the Euro Area falling with time. Spreads on credit default swaps were around 40 bps in March 2007 in the US, these rose to 80 bps by December and are now around 160 bps. India's deceleration also continues though overall growth remains robust "" the finance minister hopes his tax cuts will help retain economic growth at around 9 per cent for 2008-09 as well. Investment projects, which have driven growth so far, continue to remain unaffected. As CMIE data shows, new projects continue to be announced; the size of projects is also getting larger "" in 2000, under 8% of the value of planned projects were of more than Rs 10,000 crore and this is now up to over 27%. Also, very little of the financing is through the stock market and so should remain unaffected by the current turmoil. CLICK HERE FOR TABLES & CHARTS
