'Indian economy recovering, GDP to exceed 6pc'

New Delhi, Nov 16: At a meeting held in Mumbai on Friday, Nov 13, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Council expressed confidence that the economy was picking up on the rise in demand across all sectors and the availability of foreign capital.

Despite the dull bank credit growth, other sources of finance from the capital market and the rise in foreign capital is helping the economy get back on track. Also the projects which had frozen due to the financial crisis are slowly coming back on the table, the meeting noted.

A snap poll conducted at the meeting showed that over 70 per cent of the CEOs believed that GDP growth will exceed 6 per cent in 2009-10.

"Economic indicators are looking up – industrial production has shown a significant upturn, business confidence has surged, financial markets have stabilized and capital inflows have returned," said Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII

However, the State of the Economy Report released by CII raised concern over the agriculture sector. Despite the uptrend in industry and services, the performance of agriculture is likely to pose some downside risks to the growth outlook for Indian economy in 2009-10, the report states.

The second quarter results of a sample of 1,022 companies from manufacturing and service sector signals the stabilization of the corporate sector. India"s international trade which has been falling since Dec 2008 continues the downtrend.

The experts are also concerned over the lack of new projects in Infrastructure and the large number of problems faced by industry in executing big projects.

Keeping the recovery in mind, the stimulus measures should not be withdrawn anytime soon, the CII members said.

Apart from keeping the CENVAT rates unchanged till the next GST system tax benefit on equity mutual funds should not be withdrawn, in order for domestic savings to be channelised into the market, CII recommended.

OneIndia News