Indian economy growing at reasonable levels despite 'great adversity', says Jaitley

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said GDP in the current fiscal will be better than the 7.3 percent growth rate recorded in the last financial year and improve further in subsequent years. [caption id=“attachment_2528242” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Finance minister Arun Jaitley - PTI[/caption] He said manufacturing sector recorded a “significant” growth of 9.3 percent in the September quarter despite an adverse global situation and hoped that private sector investments would pick up faster in coming quarters. “I think the second quarter figures give us a sense of satisfaction… We expect growth this year to be better than last year and even better the next year,” Jaitley said. He was responding to the GDP growth rate which came in at 7.4 percent for July-September, higher than 7 percent in the April-June quarter. “And when manufacturing starts turning despite globally adverse circumstances, I think that’s a very significant figure from our point of view,” he said at the contract-signing event of the Indian Railways. Jaitley said the country has been facing a large number of domestic and global challenges, and slowly private investments have started to pick up. “A slowdown of the global economy at least visibly impacts our exports, so that is one challenge we have. There is also private sector investment which has now started picking up…And I do hope in months to come that it picks up faster,” he said. Jaitley said foreign direct investment, particularly in greenfield projects, has grown and public investments too have gained traction. The data released by CSO today showed that manufacturing sector grew 9.3 percent in July-September as against 7.9 percent in the year-ago period. He said Indian economy has been able to clock reasonable levels of growth despite the “great adversity” of two successive years of below-par monsoon. PTI