India’s Q3 GDP likely grew by 4.7% - data to be out later this evening

The National Statistical Office (NSO) on Tuesday will announce its gross domestic product (GDP) estimate for the third quarter of the 2022-23 fiscal year.

As per the CNBC-TV18 poll, the economy will have grown by 4.7 percent in the FY23 October-December quarter. This comes over a 5.4 percent growth in the year-ago period. Meanwhile, the growth was 6.3 percent in the second quarter of this fiscal.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had estimated that the third quarter GDP growth would come in at 4.4 percent, but a CNBC-TV18 poll is saying 4.7 percent. Assuming the economy grows at 4.7 percent as the CNBC-TV18 poll shows, the quarterly GDP will come to a little over Rs 40 trillion in real terms. This is not nominal.

At Rs 40 trillion, the economy will be 11 percent bigger than it was in the third quarter of FY20, exactly the pre-COVID quarter. This gives a 3.5 percent compounded annual growth, probably not still pre-COVID level of momentum.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Abhishek Upadhyay, a senior economist at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership, said that 4.7 percent growth is a very strong number.

“4.7 percent growth is a slowdown compared to the previous quarter, but on a quarter-and-quarter, seasonally adjusted annualised growth it’s a very strong number. This number is realised, and we are expecting 4.6 percent growth in the third quarter,” he said.

Meanwhile, Indranil Pan, the chief economist at Yes Bank, said, “We are normalising towards the trend path goal, which is unfortunately, in my opinion, about a 5.5 percent now. So, from that perspective, 4.6 percent looks to be a relatively weaker number. But on the average, we are looking at a 6.8-6.9 percent for the current financial year, and that to dip to about 6.1-6.2 percent in the next financial year.”