GDP slows down to 7.1%

The gross domestic product or GDP during April-June of this fiscal at 2011-12 prices is estimated at 7.1 per cent, as compared to 7.5 per cent in the corresponding period in 2015-16, an official release said on Wednesday.

The numbers come as an anticlimax to the aspirations expressed by the government. “A number of structural reforms have been undertaken by the government over the last two years,” Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das had said just before the data releases by the Ministry of Statistics. “The impact of all this is beginning to be felt now. We are hoping to better our growth from last year—closer to 8 per cent.”

A day before the GDP numbers were released, the business chamber Ficci had put the GDP growth at 7.8 per cent for 2016-17.

The sectors that grew at rates above 7 per cent in the first quarter are manufacturing; electricity, gas, water supply & other utility services; trade, hotels, transport & communication and services related to broadcasting; financial, insurance, real estate and professional services and public administration, defence and other services.

Agriculture grew at 1.8 per cent, forestry and fishing at (-) 0.4 per cent, and mining & quarrying and construction at 1.5 per cent.