BENGALURU (Reuters) – India’s economy is likely to have returned to growth in the December quarter due to the easing of restrictions on movement after the first wave of the coronavirus epidemic peaked, a Reuters poll predicted.
The median forecast from a survey of 58 economists, conducted between Feb. 18-24, put year-on-year growth at 0.5% in the December quarter, as the economy stabilised after contracting 23.9% and 7.5% in April-June and July-Sept quarters respectively.
“We forecast a mild expansion in the December quarter owing to strong resumption in economic activity, festival led consumer spending and modest recovery in manufacturing,” said Rini Sen, economist at ANZ. “We believe services likely spearheaded growth.”
The previous poll, taken a month ago, had predicted a 2.0%contraction.
However, the wide range of forecasts in the latest poll – from a contraction of 4.7% to a 2.6% expansion – underscores the uncertainty.
India has reported the second highest number of coronavirus cases, lagging only behind the United States, but it is widely accepted that infections are far higher than officially recorded.
The economic recovery has been aided by the government’s spending plan and its commitment to not bring its fiscal deficit down to pre-pandemic levels for at least five years, and by the Reserve Bank of India’s pledge to keep monetary policy accommodative.
“Pent-up goods demand supported by elevated financial savings have led to a rise in manufacturing. Alongside this, a strong pick-up in government spending on social welfare schemes and capital expenditure has also helped,” noted economists at HSBC.
The central bank slashed its key repo rate by 115 basis points last year and has since held it steady at 4%.
“We expect liquidity normalisation to be calibrated and incremental during the course of the year. No change is expected in the repo rate this year,” said Radhika Rao, economist at DBS Bank in Singapore.
Minutes of the last RBI monetary policy committee meeting showed optimism for a recovery, but concerns have increased about a second wave of infections and renewed lockdowns in a few areas in the state of Maharashtra, which accounts for about 16% of India’s economic output.
(Reporting by Shaloo Shrivastava; Polling by Md. Manzer Hussain and Nagamani Lingappa; Editing by Rahul Karunakar & Simon Cameron-Moore)
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
