India’s economic growth rate is likely to slow down to just 6% in 2019 from 7.4% the previous year, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said in a report released on Wednesday. If the forecast turns out to be correct, this will be the slowest annual economic growth rate in India since 2012.
China, which grew 6.6% in 2018, is also likely to slow down to 6.1% this year, according to the Trade and Development Report 2019. The report said the two economies, once among the fastest growing in the world, were “showing signs of a loss of growth momentum”. The growth projections for India were reduced because of a sharp fall in Gross Domestic Product growth to 5.8% in the January-March quarter, continuing a decelerating trend that began four years ago, the report observed.
The report did not mention the even slower growth recorded in the subsequent quarter – the GDP grew 5%, its worst rate in over six years.
India’s slowdown because of lower-than-expected collections of Goods and Services Tax and fiscal consolidation efforts would also decelerate growth in Asia as a whole, the report said. The global economic growth rate is expected to fall to 2.3%, the lowest since the global financial crisis in 2009, when the world economy shrank 1.7% according to the UN body.
On Wednesday, the Asian Development Bank also slashed its projection for India’s economic growth in the ongoing financial year from 7% to 6.5%, but said the economy would remain one of the fastest-growing in the world this year as well as the next.
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