India’s GDP at 4.4% in June quarter, lowest in 4 yrs

With fears of slowdown rising day by day, India’s GDP for the June quarter showed a lukewarm response and only grew by 4.4 per cent, the lowest in the last four years. The country’s economy had grown by 5.4 per cent in same period of the previous fiscal. India’s economy grew declined to 5 per cent in 2012-13 from 6.2 per cent in 2011-12. The economy had grown by 8 per cent for two consecutive years prior to that. While manufacturing and mining sectors have been one of the reasons behind the fall in the GDP, the fall in rupee, which hit a record low of 68.85 earlier this week, is seen as one of the major factors too. Addressing the Parliament on Friday prior to the announcement of the GDP growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured the country on the rupee and economy stating that the economy would grow by 5.5 per cent in the current fiscal. “There is no reason to believe that we are going down the hill and that 1991 is on the horizon,” the prime minister said in the Rajya Sabha. He also asserted that India was now heading back to a 1991-like crisis when the country was forced to pledge its gold to pay import bills. India’s gross domestic product growth of five percent in the financial year ended March 31, 2013 was the lowest in a decade.