The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic ‘hangs over the future, like a spectre’, and the lockdowns will impact the country’s economic activity directly. The global macroeconomic outlook is overcast with the COVID-19 pandemic ‘with massive dislocations in global production, supply chains, trade and tourism’, the central bank said in its Monetary Policy Report. The RBI report was released as India entered the sixteenth day of a 21-day nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), stalling business in an already-slowing economy. The RBI said the coronavirus outbreak has sharply altered the country’s economic recovery. The RBI projected real growth in GDP or gross domestic product at 5.0 per cent for the fiscal year 2019-20, which ended on March 31, 2020, and 5.5 per cent in the current fiscal year which ends on March 31, 2021. Official data on the final quarter of 2019-20 will be released in May-end.
The economy grew at the worst pace recorded in more than six years in the last three months of 2019, and official estimates indicate a growth rate of 5 per cent for 2019-20 – the slowest pace of expansion since the 2008-09 global financial crisis. The country has reported over 5,000 active coronavirus cases and 166 deaths as of Thursday.
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