GDP falls to 4.5% in third quarter

Hit by poor performance of farm, mining and manufacturing sector, economic growth in the October-December period slipped to 4.5% — decade’s lowest quarterly growth.
Concerned over the low growth, finance minister P Chidambaram said efforts are being made to achieve higher growth and hoped that GDP will grow by over 6% in the next financial year. The GDP had grown by 6% in the October-December period of last fiscal.
The economic growth in the first nine months of this fiscal (April-December) stood at 5.1%, lower than 6.6% in the year-ago period. The economy had grown by 5.5% and 5.3% in the first quarter and the second quarter, respectively, of 2012-13. The Economic Survey of 2012-13 tabled in Parliament yesterday has predicted a growth rate of 6.1-6.7% for the next fiscal.
During October-December quarter of 2012-13, manufacturing sector grew marginally by 2.5%, against 0.7% growth in the same period of 2011-12. Farm sector output expanded by just 1.1% in the October-December period this fiscal, against 4.1% in the same quarter last fiscal. Mining and quarrying sector, however, showed some improvement and contracted by 1.4% during the quarter, as against a decline in output by 2.6% in the third quarter of 2011-12.
Trade, hotels, transport and communications segment also witnessed lower pace of growth at 5.1% in the quarter against 6.9 per cent in the same quarter in year ago. The growth rate of electricity, gas and water supply also dipped to 4.5 per cent in the third quarter, from 7.7 per cent witnessed in the same quarter of 2011-12.
Construction sector expanded by 5.8 per cent in Q3 of 2012-13, as against 6.9 per cent in the year-ago period. Growth rate of services sector, including insurance and real estate, stood at 7.9 per cent in the third quarter, against 11.4 per cent in same quarter last fiscal. According to the CSO data, during April-December period of this fiscal manufacturing sector grew by just 1.2 per cent against 3.6 per cent in the same period last fiscal.
    In the first nine months of current fiscal, mining and quarrying marginally recovered to a growth of 0.1 per cent from a contraction in the output by 2.8 per cent. The farm and allied sectors growth declined to 1.7 per cent in the nine month period under review cent compared to 4.3 per cent a year ago.