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On last Friday, I laid on the table of the House the Economic Survey 2010-11, which gives a detailed analysis of the economic situation of the country over the past 12 months. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of India is estimated to have grown at 8.6 per cent in 2010-11 in real terms. In 2010-11 agriculture is estimated to have grown at 5.4 per cent, industry at 8.1 per cent and services at 9.6 per cent. All three sectors are contributing to the consolidation of growth. More importantly, the economy has shown remarkable resilience to both external and domestic shocks.
Our principal concern this year has been the continued high food prices. Inflation surfaced in two distinct episodes. At the beginning of the year, food inflation was high for some cereals, sugar and pulses. Towards the second half, while prices of these items moderated and even recorded negative rates of inflation, there was spurt in prices of onion, milk, poultry and some vegetables. Of late prices of onion have crashed in wholesale markets and we have had to remove the ban on their exports.
Despite improvement in the availability of most food items, consumers were denied the benefit of seasonal fall in prices normally seen in winter months. These developments revealed shortcomings in distribution and marketing systems, which are getting accentuated due to growing demand for these food items with rising income levels. The huge differences between wholesale and retail prices and between markets in different parts of the country are just not acceptable. These are at the expense of remunerative prices for farmers and competitive prices for consumers.
Monetary policy stance in 2010-11, while being supportive of fiscal policy, has succeeded in keeping core-inflation in check. As the transmission lag in monetary policy tends to be long, I expect the measures already taken by the RBI to further moderate inflation in coming months.
The developments on India's external sector in the current year have been encouraging. Even as the recovery in developed countries is gradually taking root, our trade performance has improved. Exports have grown at 29.4 per cent to reach $184.6 billion, while imports at $273.6 billion have recorded a growth of 17.6 per cent during April-January 2010-11, over the corresponding period last year. The current account deficit is around the 2009-10 level and poses some concerns because of the composition of its financing.
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