India's Q4 GDP number: Pick-up in volumes underpinned improved growth

Overall, GDP and GVA contracted by 7.3 per cent and 6.2 per cent, respectively, in FY21, in line with our forecasts (-7.3 per cent and -6.3 per cent, respectively)

Indian economic growth recorded a welcome improvement in Q4 FY2021, as per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO). This benefitted from the broad-based surge in volumes that had been portrayed by a wide gamut of high frequency indicators, although the impact of the low base related to the onset of the nationwide lockdown can’t be entirely brushed away. 

So how much did the pace of growth improve, relative to the performance in the third quarter, and was the expansion higher or lower than expected?

The answers to these two questions are somewhat complicated. On one hand, the expansion in