The Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, today said that the factory output growth data for April was “disappointing’’.
He said that the Government would have to take steps to give positive signals and improve the business sentiment to sustain economic growth momentum.
These remarks came on a day when the Central Statistics Office reported that India’s factory output growth was almost flat at 0.1 per cent.
With the Government maintaining that there was no space for more fiscal policy steps, economy watchers see Mr Mukherjee’s remarks as an indication for further monetary loosening.
All eyes are on the RBI which will go in for a mid-quarter monetary policy review on June 18.
However, the modest factory output growth for April did not seem to disappoint the stock markets. The benchmark Sensex was up 163 points around 2.40 pm on Tuesday to touch a level of 16,828.