23.5.11

Gujarat's GSDP growth in double digits



Gujarat’s gross state domestic product (GSDP) grew by 11.58 per cent during 2010-11, with all three sectors — agriculture, industry and services — demonstrating an impressive double digit growth rate for the first time since 2005-06. Latest official figures, prepared by the directorate of economics and statistics, show that agriculture, which had stagnated in the preceding two years, performed the best with 16.73 per cent. The service sector came next, growing by 12.24 per cent, while the industrial sector grew by exactly 10 per cent. What is particularly significant is that, for the first time in the last one decade, Gujarat managed to achieve a double-digit rate of growth in two consecutive years. In 2009-10, Gujarat’s economy grew by 10.23 per cent. The state has finished the decade on a buoyant note, after the initial setbacks because of the earthquake in 2001 and the communal riots in 2002. On an average, Gujarat’s economy grew by a remarkable 10.3 per cent over the last one decade, from 2001-02 to 2010-11, something that chief minister Narendra Modi would almost certainly like to highlight as he ruled right through this period. The decadal growth of all three sectors was in double digits — 10.7 per cent for agriculture, 10.3 per cent for industry and 10.9 per cent for services. Officials said the figures showed a very healthy trend of overall robustness in the state, helped by good rainfall during the 2000s and the extension of the Narmada canal network. The successive Vibrant Gujarat summits, which brought in heavy investments, had put Gujarat on a growth trajectory that would lift India’s GDP as well.

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