GDP Growth: S&P cuts India's growth forecast to 7.3%, cites inflation and the Russia-Ukraine war as the reason

India's economic growth rate will be 7.3 percent in the current financial year. S&P Global Ratings released its report on Wednesday, revising India's growth forecast for FY23 to 7.3 percent from 7.8 percent.

Policy rates need to be hiked further

In its Global Macro Update to Growth Forecast, the S&P said that prolonged inflation in the country is a major concern, requiring central banks to hike rates further. According to the report, while the growth forecast for the current financial year has been reduced to 7.3 percent, the growth rate for the next financial year has been projected to be 6.5 percent.

This estimate of inflation

The report released by S&P Global said that the revision of our forecast is attributed not only to rising inflation in the country but also to the escalation of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. This could further increase the risk to the economy. S&P has projected CPI or retail inflation to be 6.9 percent in the current fiscal. The report also estimated that the Indian economy registered a GDP growth of 8.9 percent in the last financial year (2021-22). Significantly, after the Russo-Ukraine war and rising commodity prices, various global agencies have recently cut India's growth forecast.

World Bank to RBI cut

While the World Bank in April slashed India's GDP forecast for the fiscal year 2022-23 to 8 percent from 8.7 percent, the IMF slashed the projections to 8.2 percent from 9 percent. Apart from this, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has projected India's growth rate to be 7.5 percent, while the RBI reduced its forecast to 7.2 percent from 7.8 percent.

Also Read: Russia-Ukraine War: RBI may increase the repo rate by 0.75 percent by August, Ukraine crisis also due to an increase in inflation