Apr. 21 – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced yesterday that he expects the Indian economy to rebound and GDP growth rates to return to between 8 to 9 percent by September.
Currently, the Indian economy is growing at about 6.5 percent to 7 percent. The World Bank predicts that India’s economy will slow to about 4 percent for 2009.
The prime minister’s optimism is underlined by India’s first quarter results, which seem to indicate that the worst is over because moderate interest costs are helping Indian companies improve profitability results despite a slowdown in sales.
Net profits for the first fifty companies reporting their first quarter results show an overall trend of a 19 percent increase in profits compared to the same period last year. Net sales rose by 16 percent year on year, compared to a rise of 22 percent in the previous quarter.
