Now Citi, CLSA trim India's growth to 5.4%

Mumbai: Two more institutions joined the growing list of analysts expecting sub-6 per cent growth for India this fiscal, with American banking major Citi and global brokerage CLSA today cutting their estimates to 5.4 and 5.5 percent respectively.

“The stars just don’t seem to be aligning for India, with almost all the growth drivers being hit…the government needs to get down to serious business with more action to stem a further deceleration in growth,” a note from Citi said, adding that it is scaling down its FY'13 growth estimate to 5.4 percent from the earlier 6.4 percent.

The report, authored by Citi India chief economist Rohini Malkani, further said if the drought conditions worsen, growth may slip further to 4.9 percent.

Meanwhile, the global brokerage firm CLSA also cut its GDP growth estimate to 5.5 percent from the earlier 6 percent, stating, “The revised forecast assumes lower growth of zero percent (from a “normal” 3 percent) for the agriculture and allied sector.”

The brokerage’s senior economist Rajeev Malik said this may not be a final revision as the monsoon is not yet over.

Last week, the Met department said the monsoons will be below normal by 9-10 per cent of the long period average.

The twin downward revisions come within a day of ratings agency Crisil going public with its estimate of a 5.5 percent growth, while some others, notably JP Morgan with 5.3 percent, had earlier forecast lower growth.

In its quarterly policy review on 31 July, the Reserve Bank also cut its growth expectations to 6.5 percent from the earlier 7 percent, blaming high fiscal deficit, sticky inflation and a possible drought.

In the Union budget in February, the government had targeted a 7.6 percent growth.

Notably after record growth, GDP for FY12 came down to 6.5 percent, which was 2 percent lower than in FY'08. That growth was driven down by the global credit crisis following the fall of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

PTI