Real GDP growth in Q1 FY 09 at 7.9 pc-CMIE

The first quarter of this fiscal witnessed a real GDP growth of 7.9 per cent which is expected to accelerate further in the second half, an economic think-tank report said.

"Real GDP grew by 7.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2008-09. We expect the economy to accelerate in the second half of the fiscal," the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said in its September monthly review.

The broad composition of the growth in the first quarter was - agriculture - three per cent, industry - 6.9 per cent and services - 10 per cent, CMIE said.

However, each of these were lower than the corresponding levels of growth in the year-ago quarter with the slowdown severest in industry, CMIE said.

"Within industry, mining and construction sectors reported healthy acceleration in growth," the report said.
Mining growth accelerated from 1.7 per cent in the previous year to 4.8 per cent in this year while in the case of the construction industry, the acceleration was from 7.7 to 11.4 per cent.

The manufacturing and utilities sectors saw a serious slowdown. "Growth in manufacturing slowed to 5.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2008-09 from the 10.9 per cent growth registered in the first quarter of 2007-08," CMIE said.

-Economic Times