Economic growth will be less than 6 percent: Survey

New Delhi, Nov 11 (IANS) India’s economic growth will be less than six percent while inflation will remain in the range of six to eight percent next year, according to chief financial officers of leading Indian firms.

The Eurozone crisis followed by slowdown in the US and increasing oil prices are expected to have the biggest impact on the Indian economy, according to a survey conducted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and McKinsey & Co among other CFOs (chief financial officers) of Indian firms.

Over half of the CFOs (chief financial officers) who participated in the survey, released Sunday, believe that global economic growth will remain flat in the coming year, while 67 percent feel that India’s gross domestic product growth will be less than six percent.

India’s economic growth fell to a nine-year low of 5.3 percent in the January-March 2012 quarter. It improved marginally to 5.5 percent in the quarter ended June, but remained much below the average annual growth of 8.2 percent recorded in the past eight years.

The government’s budgetary projection of economic growth for the current financial year is 7.6 percent. However, analysts as well as policy-makers have expressed doubts over the achievement of this growth rate.

Nearly half of the financial officers expect inflation to remain in the 6-8 percent range in 2013.

The Indian rupee is expected to remain in the range of 50-55 against a US dollar in 2013, 86 percent of the surveyed executives feel.

Chief financial officers of 32 leading Indian companies across sectors including manufacturing, IT services, consultancy and financial services participated in the survey.

All the executives who participated in the survey believe that the single goods and services act (GST) and new Companies Bill are steps in the right direction and would have a medium-to-high impact on their business.

However, most of the executives said they were concerned about the speed of the implementation of the proposed reform measures.

IANS 2012-11-11 16:50:08