India to grow at 8% over the next few years: S&P

The Dollar Business Bureau 

Supported by growing domestic consumption base, credit rating agency S&P Global on Monday has estimated that India would witness a ‘steroid-free’ growth of 8 percent in the coming next few years.

In its report on APAC Economic Snapshots - September 2016, the US-based agency said that structural reform agenda in India has maintained robust momentum and should propel higher growth.

“For India, we are still forecasting GDP growth at about 8 percent over the next few years. Moreover, this is relatively high quality, ‘steroid-free’ growth backed by a broadening consumption base,” said S&P. 

The structural reform agenda in the country continues to keep a strong momentum, with the recent passage of GST Bill, and should drive higher growth, it added. 

S&P further said that inflation continued to be a risk, due to large weights on fuel, food, and various other volatile items in the target basket of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). 

The recent figures on the gross domestic production (GDP) showed that the country’s growth slowed down to 7.1 percent in the quarter of April-June, from 7.9 percent in previous quarter of January-March. 

RBI has said that India’s short-term growth outlook looks brighter compared to the last financial year and the economy is expected to grow at 7.6 percent in the fiscal of 2016-17.