A Reserve Bank sponsored survey has lowered the growth projection for the current fiscal to 7.9 per cent from 8.2 per cent estimated earlier and pegged March-end inflation at 7-7.9 per cent. For 2011-12,forecasters have revised their real GDP growth rate projections to 7.9 per cent, RBI said in a release on a survey conducted by 'Professional Forecasters'. RBI itself in its monetary policy had projected 8 per cent growth rate for the current fiscal,while the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council expects it to be 8.2 per cent. The economy expanded by 8.5 per cent in 2010-11. On inflation,the survey said it would come down to 7-7.9 per cent by March-end,from 9.44 per cent in June. Food inflation,which accounts for 15 per cent in the overall wholesale price index (WPI) basket,was 9.90 per cent for the week ended July 30. The growth rate projection for agriculture,industry and services are 3.5 per cent,7.4 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. For agriculture there has been an upward revision and for the industry and the services,there is a downward revision from the previous round, it said. The survey,conducted between April and June 2011,provides forecast for major macro-economic indicators relating to short and medium term term economic developments. It did not take into account the impact of downgrade of the US Sovereign ratings by Standard & Poor's to AA+ from AAA on the domestic economy. The survey said the average inflation in the July-September period will remain at 10 per cent level. The RBI in its first quarterly monetary policy last month,too,had said that inflation would remain at elevated level till November. The rate of price rise may see some moderation in the early months of 2012,it added. The survey projected the corporate profitability to decelerate during the current fiscal on account of various macro-economic factors. The profit growth of corporate sector in 2011-12 has been projected to be 12.2 per cent,revised significantly downwards from 20.0 per cent in the previous round of survey, it said. However,it has projected a high fiscal deficit of 5.3 per cent,much above the government estimates of 4.6 per cent for the fiscal 2011-12. The survey said,it expects the repo (short-term lending) rate to remain at around 8 per cent during the fiscal. Earlier,it had projected that the rate would be at 7.25 per cent. Exports it said woudld grow by 20.05 per cent during 2011-12 up from 17.2 per cent estimated earlier. As regards imports,the Survey said,it could grow by 23 per cent during the year as against 20 per cent forecast earlier. Referring to the long term GDP forecast,it said the growth rate during 2012-16 would be 8.5 per cent. The 10 year growth forecast (2012-2021) has been pegged at 8.8 per cent.
