By Shubham Batra and Manoj Kumar<\/p>\n
NEW DELHI, June 5 (Reuters) – India’s economy grew an unexpectedly strong 7.8% year-on-year in the January-March quarter, the government said on Friday, as robust private investment, farm output and construction activity offset the early impact of \u200cthe Middle East conflict.<\/p>\n
The print, the second in an updated data series with a revised base year and wider coverage, was \u200cwell above a forecast of 7.2% growth in a Reuters poll of economists.<\/p>\n
Compared with the previous three months, however, the January-March reading marked a marginal slowdown. The government revised up \u200bthe growth rate for the previous three months to 8.0% from an earlier 7.8%.<\/p>\n
“The disruption due to the West Asia conflict in March seems to have had a limited impact on economic momentum,” said Sakshi Gupta, principal economist at Mumbai-headquartered HDFC Bank, while adding that growth would likely moderate starting from the April-June quarter.<\/p>\n
Gross value added, a more accurate measure of underlying economic activity, grew 7.9% during the January-March quarter, the data showed. GVA strips out \u200cthe volatile components of national accounts such as \u2060indirect taxes and government subsidies.<\/p>\n
India estimates GDP growth for the full fiscal year that ended in March at 7.7%, the National Statistics Office said, compared with a forecast of 7.6% from February.<\/p>\n
The country’s chief economic adviser, V Anantha \u2060Nageswaran, had forecast economic growth in the current fiscal year at 7% to 7.4% in a projection issued before the Middle East conflict began.<\/p>\n
India has been one of the economies hardest hit by the Iran war that has stretched into a fourth month with no immediate prospects of a peace deal between \u200bWashington \u200band Tehran. India is the world’s third-largest crude importer and consumer, and it is \u200bheavily dependent on supplies from the Middle East.<\/p>\n
The Middle \u200cEast war is seen pulling down growth in the Indian economy to 6.6% this fiscal year, the central bank said earlier in the day, as it kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged while signalling a possible hawkish shift due to inflation pressures and weakness in the rupee.<\/p>\n
Domestic inflation is set to pick up and fiscal and current account balances are set to widen, which has battered financial markets.<\/p>\n
A disappointing monsoon, with the lowest rainfall in 11 years, could hurt growth going ahead.<\/p>\n
Manufacturing output rose 7.3% year-on-year in January-March, compared with a revised expansion of 12.8% in the \u200cprevious quarter, while construction activity stood at 8.4%, up from revised growth of 6.7% \u200bin the previous quarter.<\/p>\n
Growth in farm output, a sector which employs more than 40% \u200bof the country’s enormous workforce, came in at 3.6% in \u200bthe fourth quarter of 2025\/26 compared with a revised 1.7% a quarter earlier.<\/p>\n
PRIVATE INVESTMENT, GOVERNMENT SPENDING SUPPORT<\/p>\n
Private consumer spending, \u200cwhich accounts for 57% of Indian GDP, grew 7.1% in \u200bthe March quarter, from a revised \u200b8.2% expansion in the previous three months.<\/p>\n
Government spending rose 4.9% compared with an expansion of 4.6% in the previous quarter, the data showed, while private investment grew 10.8%, up from the revised 8.2% growth a quarter earlier.<\/p>\n
Investment growth by the private sector was the \u200bhighest in the last three years in the \u200cnew series, with base year as 2022\/23.<\/p>\n
“A notable deterioration in private consumption was offset by stronger investment,” said Alexandra Hermann Prasad, \u200blead economist at Oxford Economics in London.<\/p>\n
“We believe activity has already started slowing and will remain soft,” Prasad said.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by \u200bShubham Batra and Manoj Kumar in New Delhi; Editing by Hugh Lawson)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Shubham Batra and Manoj Kumar NEW DELHI, June 5 (Reuters) – India’s economy grew an unexpectedly strong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,298669,101,7175,2344,298670,89180,298671],"class_list":["post-687551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-construction-activity","tag-economy","tag-growth-rate","tag-india","tag-national-statistics-office","tag-private-investment","tag-sakshi-gupta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=687551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}