The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday projected an 11.5% growth rate for India’s economy in 2021, in its World Economic Outlook report for January. The body estimated that India’s economy contracted by 8% in 2020. The figure is a positive revision of its estimate in October 2020, when it had predicted that the growth rate will shrink by 10.3%.
The IMF report suggested that India will be the only major economy to register a double-digit growth this year, followed by China, which is expected to grow by 8.1% in 2021. However, China grew by 2.3% in 2020, according to the IMF data, making it the only major economy to record positive growth. China thus has a higher base for year-on-year GDP growth rate calculation.
In the report, IMF estimated a global contraction of 3.5% in 2020, an improvement of 0.9 percentage points from the 4.4% slump predicted in October, reflecting stronger-than-expected momentum in the second half of 2020. It predicted global growth of 5.5% in 2021, an increase of 0.3 percentage points from the October forecast, citing expectations of a vaccine-powered uptick later in the year and added policy support in the United States, Japan and a few other large economies.
Earlier on Tuesday, a separate report released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, estimated India’s economy contract by 9.6% in 2020, while it is projected to grow at 7.3% in 2021.
Last month, government data for the first advance estimates of this fiscal, projected India’s economy to contract by 7.7% in real terms. However, that projection was for the financial year (April 2020-March 2021), whereas the IMF and UN estimates are for the calendar year (January 2020 - December 2020).
India’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate had contracted by 7.5% in the second quarter (July-September), after shrinking by an unprecedented 23.9% in the first three month period (April-June) of the financial year. The Reserve Bank of India has predicted economy to register positive growth in the third quarter (October-December).
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