CMIE pegs FY10 growth at 7.1%

Driven by an estimated 8.4 per cent growth in the fourth quarter, the economy is expected to grow by 7.1 per cent in the just-concluded fiscal and by a robust 9.2 per cent in the current financial year, the leading economic think-tank CMIE has said.

"We estimate the real gross domestic product (GDP) would have risen by 7.1 per cent in fiscal 2009-10...and by 9.2 per cent in 2010-11," the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) said in its report.

While GDP growth for the just-concluded fiscal is a tad lower than the 7.2-percentage point expansion that finance minister Pranab Mukherjee as well as the Central Statistical Organisation have been projecting, the current year projection is much above the minster's 8.75 per cent spike.

In the fourth-quarter, it is estimated to have grown by an "impressive" 8.4 per cent, the CMIE report said, adding during the first three-quarters of the past fiscal, real GDP grew by 6.7 per cent compared to 7.1 per cent in the same period of 2008-09.

"The growth in 2009-10 would be driven by the rise in GDP from the industrial sector including construction, it said," adding, "we estimate that the industry sector would have grown by 9.4 per cent in 2009-10, with the manufacturing segment clocking a robust 10.3 per cent growth."

Real GDP from mining and quarrying is estimated to have grown by 10.3 per cent in 2009-10, on top of a 9.7 per cent growth in 2008-09.

"Coal, natural gas and iron ore are the few items whose production has recorded impressive growth," the CMIE said. Growth in the services sector is estimated to have come down to 8.2 per cent in FY10 from 9.8 per cent in FY09, it said.