India’s economy clocked a 6.3 per cent growth for the July-September quarter of the current financial year compared to 8.4 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year, according to official figures released on Wednesday.

The growth rate is higher than the anticipated 5.9 per cent to 6.1 per cent forecast by some banks including SBI and the 6.2% forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. However, the Reserve Bank of India’s forecast for the quarter was between 6.1 and 6.3 per cent. Importantly, India continues to be among the fastest growing economies of the world. China registered a growth rate of 3.9 per cent in the July-September quarter.

While the manufacturing slowed during the quarter partly due to the decline in exports as global economies are contracting, the services sector came up with a robust performance.

The growth rate in the second quarter of the previous year was higher because of a favourable base effect for the year as the comparison was with the preceding Covid-hit year.

India’s real GDP calculated with 2011-12 as the base year stood at Rs 36.85 lakh crore during the quarter compared to Rs 32.46 lakh crore in the same quarter of 2021-22. In the April-June quarter of 2019-20, a year that serves as a crucial benchmark as it was before the outbreak of the pandemic—the country’s GDP was Rs 35.67 lakh crore, the ministry of statistics and programme implementation said.

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