India Economic Outlook

The year 2017 was marked by a number of key structural initiatives to build strength across macro-economic parameters for sustainable growth in the future. The growth in the first half of the year suffered despite global tailwinds. However, the weakness seen at the beginning of 2017, seems to have bottomed out as 2018 set in. Currently, the economy seems to be on the path to recovery, with indicators of industrial production, stock market index, auto sales and exports having shown some uptick (shown below). We believe that India’s economic outlook remains promising for FY17-18 and is expected to strengthen further in FY18-19. However, the signs of green shoots should not be taken for granted as downside risks remain.

The biggest challenges for 2018 are as to how the economy can maintain its recovery in the face of increasing inflationary pressures, coupled with a higher fiscal deficit as well as an increasing debt burden. The key to this conundrum lies in the revival of consumer demand and private investment. 

The objective of this paper is to present an analysis of the current Indian economic scenario along with the expectations from the period ahead.