Indian economy resilient as PMI for services and manufacturing gain momentum, reflected in NCAER’s monthly review citing healthy GST collections and robust credit growth
The Indian economy showed resilience, with the Purchasing Manager’s Index for services accelerating and manufacturing regaining momentum, according to the National Council of Applied Economic Research’s February economic review.
The composite PMI increased to 61.2 in January from 58.5 in December 2023, with manufacturing activity’s PMI accelerating to 56.5 from 54.9 and services’ PMI increasing to 61.8 from 59 in December 2023.
“The markers for the month like PMI and GST collections point to a resilient macroeconomic environment. An encouraging signal comes from easing of inflationary pressure, especially the moderation in food price inflation,” Dr Poonam Gupta, Director General, NCAER, said.
The report points to healthy GST collections which reached a value of Rs 1.7 lakh crore in January, registering a year-on-year growth of 10.4 per cent. Sequentially, GST collections increased by 4.4 per cent.
Credit growth remained robust for the personal loans and services sector with the total outstanding credit of commercial banks increasing by nearly 20 per cent on a year-on-year basis, it says.
Headline consumer price inflation for January 2024 decelerated to 5.1 per cent from 5.7 per cent in December 2023. The inflationary pressure eased the softening of food price inflation and on the back of moderating wholesale price inflation in January.
The review says sales of non-Electric Vehicle (non-EV) two-wheelers registered a growth of over 26 per cent in January 2024 on a year-on-year basis and a sequential growth of over 23 per cent
As per the review, employment indicators showed mixed trends. While the number of net new subscribers under EPFO increased year-on-year, online hiring, as per the Naukri JobSpeak Index, moderated by about 11 per cent year-on-year, with a heterogenous hiring trend across sectors.
