India’s economy surges by 7.5% in first quarter

India’s economy grew 7.5% in the three months ending in March, higher than the previous quarter and above expectations.

It means the country has outpaced China’s economic expansion for two quarters out of the last three.

Forecasts were for growth of about 7.3% for the period compared with a year earlier.

However, the country adopted a new way of calculating growth, which some experts say distorts the real picture.

The country’s annual growth for the year 2014-15 was 7.3%.

Despite the robust growth numbers, India’s government and its businesses are hoping the country’s central bank will move to cut lending rates again soon to give the economy a further boost.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has already cut its benchmark lending rates twice this year, but left its rates unchanged in April.

New method

The government revised down India’s growth for the period October to December 2014 to 6.6%, compared with the same period the year before.

Its previous figure was 7.5%.

But it also now says growth between July and September was 8.4% rather than the 8.2% earlier stated.

Economists have warned the data needs to be treated with caution since changes were made to the way in which the GDP figure was calculated.

Source: BBC News