With sluggish global outlook and Indian stock markets at 12-month low, leading financial analysts predict that India’s export prospects will take a hit, a survey by FICCI reveals.
The outlook for exports is also tempered on account of rising interest rates, rising raw material prices and mounting cost of oil and oil products and the closure of the DEPB scheme by end September 2011.
It may however be noted that while export growth will not be as significant as seen in the recent past, we will still clock an average growth of about 20 per cent this year mainly owing to diversification of our export markets within Asia, Africa and Latin America, the survey revealed.
The survey attributes, sluggish 2.5 per cent growth outlook for US to weak demand, weak investment sentiments and moderation in government spending in the months ahead.
The projected growth rate for the Euro area of 1.9 per cent is slightly higher than the IMF projection that pegs growth at 1.6 per cent.
The survey attributed Japan’s growth rate of negative 0.5 per cent to the lingering impact of tsunami, earthquake and the nuclear crises. However some of the respondents of the survey estimated a higher growth. The experience of past disasters in Japan shows that the negative short-term impact on economic output will be followed by a rebound as reconstruction spending picks up. IMF has pegged Japan’s growth at 1.4 per cent in 2011.
With regard to China, the survey respondents opine that growth in 2011 would moderate to about 9.5 per cent. The moderation will be smaller in absence of negative impacts from inflation or overvalued assets.