RBI survey puts India's 2009-10 real GDP growth at 6.9 per cent

In real GDP terms the Indian economy is expected to grow 6.9 per cent in 2009-10, against an earlier forecast of 6.0 per cent, even as the economy is expected to grow between 8.0 and 8.4 per cent range in the 2010-11 fiscal, the Reserve Bank of India said in a release today.

The forecasts were based on a survey of probabilities of year-over-year real GDP growth falling into various ranges. The highest probability of 43.8 per cent was assigned to the growth range of 6.5-6.9 per cent for the year 2009-10.

For the year 2010-11, the forecasters have assigned the highest probability of 33.8 per cent to 8.0-8.4 per cent growth range for GDP, RBI said in a release.

For the year 2009-10, they have revised agriculture sector growth upwards from (-) 1.4 per cent to (-)0.9 per cent. For industry, the forecasts have been revised significantly upwards from 6.3 per cent to 8.4 per cent, whereas for the service sector, there was modest upward revision from 8.1 per cent in the earlier survey to 8.7 per cent in the current survey, RBI said.

The proportion of domestic saving to GDP is indicated to be higher at 35.0 per cent in 2009-10, against 33.6 per cent in the last survey.

Forecasters expect gross domestic capital formation to contribute 37.7 per cent of real GDP in 2009-10 (37.3 per cent in last survey), while contribution of gross fixed capital formation is expected to be 34.0 per cent (against 33.5 per cent in the last survey).