Focus: GS-III Indian Economy
Introduction
The National Statistical Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) will come out with the GDP estimates for the first quarter (April, May, June) of 2020.
What do we know about the current state of economy?
RBI Annual Report
The RBI’s annual year is different from the regular financial year.
- For RBI the annual report of 2019-20 pertains to the period between July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2020, whereas for the financial year 2019-20- the period is between, April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020.
- The first quarter of the current Financial Year (Q1FY21) is the quarter that saw the maximum disruption of economic activity.
Review of ease-of-doing-business rankings
Recently the World Bank issued a statement saying that it has ordered a “systematic review” and “internal audit” of its data and methodology used for compiling the Ease of Doing Business rankings that were published in 2017 and 2019.
Export Preparedness Index
- The index launched by NITI Aayog ranked Indian states and Union Territories in the context of export preparedness in terms of policy environment, infrastructure etc.
- The top performers were mostly coastal states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Odisha but there was one landlocked state that managed to sneak into the top 5 list and it was Rajasthan.
- A crucial takeaway from this report was the need for states to work on their unique strategy for boosting exports.
How difficult is it to make estimates GST and what is their significance?
- It is true that GDP projections over the past year or so have increasingly shortened shelf life.
- In this financial year, making these estimates and projections is even more difficult because Covid’s spread in India has been much worse than the government’s expectation.
-Source: Indian Express
