-Arista Menezes
Amid the RBI’s continuous pause on repo rates, and inflation cooling down to comfort level, there have been certain key steps taken by the government to curb the rising prices.
Globally, interest rates are likely to remain higher before the world can adapt to a regime of a sustainable growth. The global economy has to brace up to living with extreme shifts led by the recent geopolitical conflicts.
Government has released the data of key growth matrix that includes GDP, inflation, forex reserves among others for the month of August and September.
Goods and Services taxes
The GST collection from both states and centre grew by10.8 percent (y-o-y) to 1.59 lakh crore in August 2023. The average monthly gross GST collection during April-August 2023-24 stood at 1.66 lakh crore, up from 1.49 lakh crore a year ago.
The gross GST revenue collected in the month of Septembe, 2023 is ₹1,62,712 crore.
Forex Reserves
Forex Reserves are the assets held by the central bank of a country in a foreign currency. In the calendar year 2023, Indian foreign exchange reserves increased by US$ 31.2 billion, which is the second highest among major foreign exchange reserves holding countries.
India’s Forex reserves stood $598.897 billion. While in September 2023 India’s forex reserves stood $586 billion
Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)
The headline PMI for the manufacturing sector expanded to 58.6 in August 2023, recording the second highest acceleration since October 2020. The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the services sector fell to 60.1 in August from 62.3 in July, pulled down by service sector business activity.
In September 2023, India’s PMI for manufacturing fell to 57.5 from 58.6 a month ago.
Trade merchandise:
India’s merchandise exports at US$ 34.5 billion in August 2023 remained in contraction for the seventh consecutive month. Merchandise imports at US$ 58.6 billion registered a contraction of 5.2 per cent (y-o-y) in August 2023, the seventh consecutive month of contraction.
Petroleum products, gems and jewelry, chemicals, rice and ready-made garments (RMG) of all textiles dragged exports down whereas engineering goods, electronic goods, cotton yarn, fabrics, iron ore, and drugs and pharmaceuticals supported export growth in August 2023.
According to the data estimated by RBI for September 2023, India’s overall exports in to be $ 63.84 Billion and imports to be $68.75 Billion
Unemployment:
The all-India unemployment rate (UR) edged up to 8.1 per cent in August 2023 on account of higher UR in urban areas while rural unemployment fell, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).
The labour force participation rate (LFPR) and the employment rate (ER), recorded an increase, with the urban LFPR rising to its highest level since the onset of the pandemic, reported CMIE
The unemployment rate in India for September 2023 is 7.1%, marking a significant decrease from the previous month.
Indian Rupee
The Indian rupee (INR) depreciated by 0.8 per cent (m-o-m) vis-à-vis the US dollar in August 2023, reflecting the strong US dollar and high bond yields in US.
Inflation
Headline inflation, as measured by y-o-y changes in the all-India consumer price index (CPI) moderated to 6.8 per cent in August 2023 from 7.4 per cent in July. Food inflation (y-o-y) fell to 9.2 per cent in August from 10.6 per cent in July as the negative momentum was reinforced by a favourable base effect.
Inflation moderated in cereals, milk, pulses and prepared meals, while it edged up in spices, fruits, eggs, meat and fish. While core inflation remained steady at 4.9 per cent in August.
In September inflation fell to 5.02% as compared to a year ago which was 7.41% in September 2022
Bank Credit
On a year-on-year (y-o-y) basis, non-food bank credit registered a growth of 15.0 per cent in August 2023 as compared with 16.0 per cent a year ago.
The bank credit expanded by 15.07 per cent year-on-year as of September 8, 2023, according to Reserve Bank of India data.
| Item | Credit deployed in August 2022 | Credit deployed in August 2023 |
| Agriculture | 13.4% | 16.6% |
| Industry | 11.4% | 6.1% |
| Services | 17.4% | 20.7% |
| Personal Loans | 19.4% | 18.3% |
Among major industries, credit growth (y-o-y) to ‘basic metal & metal products’ and ‘textiles’ accelerated in August 2023 as compared with the corresponding month of the previous year, while that to ‘chemicals & chemical products’, ‘food processing’ and ‘infrastructure’ decelerated.
Payments System.
Digital payments maintained a strong growth trajectory in volume and value terms across payment modes during August 2023. As a significant milestone for the retail segment, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) recorded 10 billion transactions (volume), accounting for around 81 per cent of the total digital transactions.
