India’s quarterly growth slumps to a near two-year low, well below expectations

India’s quarterly growth slumps to a near two-year low, well below expectations


Construction workers in Mumbai, India, on June 5, 2024. 

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

India’s economy expanded by just 5.4% in its second fiscal quarter ending September, well below estimates by economists and close to a two-year low.

The print follows 6.7% growth over the previous quarter and is the lowest reading since the last quarter of 2022. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast growth of 6.5% for the period, while the Reserve Bank of India expected an expansion of 7%.

The country’s statistics agency noted sluggish growth in manufacturing and the mining sector.

The yield on the country’s 10-year sovereign bond quickly sank to 6.74% after the release, from around 6.8%.

The weak GDP reading could potentially affect the country’s interest rate trajectory, with the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee scheduled to meet between Dec. 6-8. Markets watchers had been expecting an eleventh consecutive pause by the RBI, with the repo rate currently at 6.5%.

India's economy is likely to slow in 2025, economist says

Speaking to CNBC “Squawk Box Asia” before the GDP release, Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, forecast that India’s economy will slow but not “collapse” in 2025.

She said that Natixis has a 2025 growth forecast of 6.4% for India — without clarifying whether this refers to the fiscal or calendar year — but added that the print could also come in as low as 6%, which she qualified as “not a bit problem, but it’s not welcome.”

Separately, the RBI projected that GDP growth for the 2024 fiscal year ending in March 2025 will reach a higher 7.2%.

Asked how India’s economy will fare under President-elect Donald Trump’s second presidency, Herrero said the country is “not really at the center of the reshuffling of the value chain that China has been conducting.”

“If I were the Trump administration, I would start [looking at tariffs for] Vietnam. That’s a much more obvious case,” she noted.

She said that China could make products in India for Indian consumption instead of exporting products globally — and as such, New Delhi could avoid getting hit by tariffs.



Source

Nuclear stocks surge after U.S. Army launches program to deploy small reactors
World

Nuclear stocks surge after U.S. Army launches program to deploy small reactors

Nuclear stocks rallied Wednesday after the U.S. Army launched a program to deploy small reactors. Shares of NuScale, a small reactor developer, soared 17%. Oklo and Nano Nuclear were up nearly 7% and 4%, resepectively. The uranium company Centrus was up 13%. The U.S. Army on Tuesday launched a program to build micro nuclear reactors […]

Read More
Apple announces new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro with updated chip
World

Apple announces new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro with updated chip

The upgraded Apple Vision Pro features the powerful M5 chip, the comfortable Dual Knit Band, innovative features with visionOS 26, and all-new spatial apps and Apple Immersive content. Courtesy: Apple Inc. Apple announced new MacBook Pro, iPad Pro and Vision Pro models on Wednesday with an updated M5 chip that allows them to run faster […]

Read More
Treasury Secretary Bessent says a stock market decline won’t deter the U.S. from taking strong action against China
World

Treasury Secretary Bessent says a stock market decline won’t deter the U.S. from taking strong action against China

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted Wednesday that the U.S. won’t change its trade negotiating stance on China due to stock market volatility. “We won’t negotiate because the stock market is going down” or shy away from taking strong measures against Beijing for that reason, Bessent said in an exclusive interview at CNBC’s Invest in America […]

Read More