Terming the decline in India’s GDP growth as ‘a little dip’ in Q1FY18, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the government was in the process of addressing challenges posed by the economy. Asserting that the Indian economy was sound, he said macro-economic data in the last three-and-a-half years have revealed that the economy was sounder than ever before except for the little dip in the last quarter.
The minister further said that the government had taken several steps in the last three and half years and added that those at the receiving end would be uneasy about these measures. He noted that during April-June period, the performance of services sector had actually improved, even though manufacturing brought the GDP growth down. Besides, he attributed the slowdown to weak investment in the private sector that is dependent on banks' ability to support growth and to destocking ahead of the launch of GST on July 1 this year.
The country's economic growth unexpectedly slowed to 5.7% in the June quarter, the slowest pace in three years, underlining the disruption caused by the uncertainty related to the rollout of the goods and services tax (GST) even as the Indian economy is struggling to recover from a shock demonetisation.