Amid the global agencies revising India’s growth projection towards an upward trajectory, Moody’s Analytics has projected India’s economy to expand by 6.1% in 2024, a decrease from the 7.7% growth recorded in 2023.

“Economies in South and Southeast Asia will see some of the strongest output gains this year, but their performance is flattered by a delayed post-pandemic rebound. We expect India’s GDP to grow 6.1 per cent in 2024 after 7.7 per cent last year,” Moody’s Analytics said.

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In a report titled ‘APAC Outlook: Listening Through the Noise’, Moody’s Analytics said the region overall is doing better than other parts of the world.

Moody’s highlighted that India’s output remains 4% lower than it would have been without the Covid-19 pandemic and its various aftermaths, including supply disruptions and military conflicts abroad.

It further observed that both India and Southeast Asia have experienced significant output losses compared to their pre-pandemic trajectories, and their recovery is still in its early stages.

Regarding inflation, the report highlighted uncertainties for China and India. “Inflation in India is at the opposite extreme, with recent consumer price inflation rates hovering around 5%, close to the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India’s target range of 2 to 6% and without clear evidence of a trend towards slowing price pressures,” said the report.

Notably, the APAC (Asia-Pacific) region is faring relatively well compared to the rest of the world. The report forecasts 3.8% growth for the APAC economy in 2024, in contrast to the global economy’s 2.5% growth.

Recently, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) upgraded India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for Financial Year 2024-25 to 7% from its earlier projection of 6.7%.

ADB citied robust public and private investments and strong services sector for the revised number.

However, it said unanticipated global events such as supply line disruptions to crude oil markets and weather shocks to agriculture are key risks to India’s economic outlook.

Recently, at the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meet, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stated that uncertainties in food prices continue to influence the inflation outlook. The RBI maintained its retail inflation projection for the current fiscal year 2024-25 at 4.5%.

RBI forecasted the inflation rates of 4.9% for the June quarter, 3.8% for the September quarter, and 4.6% and 4.7% for the December and March quarters, respectively.