NEW DELHI: India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed in the January-March quarter to 7.4 per cent, according to the government data released on Friday.
The full-year numbers also captured a slowdown in India’s economy as govt data for FY25 showed growth tapering to 6.5 per cent against 9.2 per cent in FY24.
The growth in the January-March period was lower than the 8.4 per cent expansion in the year-ago quarter.
The latest GDP growth figures came days after NITI Aayog CEO BVR Subrahmanyam announced that India had overtaken Japan to become the fourth-largest economy in the world.
Subrahmanyam had also asserted that the overall geopolitical and economic environment is favourable to India. “We are the fourth largest economy as I speak. We are a USD 4 trillion economy as I speak,” he said.
Citing International Monetary Fund (IMF) data, Subrahmanyam said, India today was larger than Japan. Till 2024, India was the fifth-largest economy in the world. “It is only the US, China and Germany which are larger than India, and if we stick to what is being planned and what is being thought through, in 2.5-3 years, we will be the third largest economy,” Subrahmanyam said.
India’s economic story so far
India’s real Gross Domestic Product picked pace sequentially to grow 6.2 per cent in October-December 2024 (Q3 of 2024-25 or FY25) compared with 5.6 per cent in July-September 2024 (Q2), aided by accelerating consumption demand, quarterly GDP estimates released by the National Statistics Office had shown. In Q3 of 2023-24, the GDP had grown 9.5 per cent.
For the full financial year FY25, the GDP growth rate, as per the second advance estimates, is seen marginally higher at 6.5 per cent as against the 6.4 per cent in the first advance estimates released in January. This is significant since it has come despite a sharp upward revision of GDP data for FY24. As per the latest estimates, GDP growth in FY24 has been revised up to 9.2 per cent from 8.2 per cent earlier. At 9.2 per cent, the GDP growth for 2023-24 is the second highest in the last 12 years.
Agencies