India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow at a “deceptively high” level of 20 percent in the April-June quarter of the fiscal year 2021-22, rating agency ICRA said in a report on Thursday, August 19.
According to ICRA, the low base effect of the last fiscal year when the GDP had contracted by 24 percent “conceals the impact of the second wave of the pandemic in the current year”.
“The double-digit expansion expected in the first quarter of 2021-22 is deceptively high, as it benefits inordinately from last year’s contracted base. We forecast gross value added (GVA) and GDP to have contracted by nine percent compared to the pre-Covid level of the first quarter of the fiscal year 2019-20. This highlights the tangible distress being experienced by economic agents in the least formal and contact-intensive sectors,” ICRA said.
Official data of economic activity for the period is expected from the government later this month.