Just a couple of days ago, the growth of Indian economy for 2006-07 was revised upwards from 9.4% to 9.6%.

Now CSO in its advanced estimates for 2007-08 has suggested that growth rate of Indian economy is likely to be 8.7%. Themedia has used variety of terms for this - slowdown, moderation, etc. The FM is disappointed but expects the revisions to move the growth rate to 9%. Moderation is still fine but can we call it a slowdown? I would say the growth is still pretty robust considering the global scenario. It is not right to expect economy to continue to grow above 9% especially in such jittery global economic conditions.

So, how do the analysts fare? RBI’s Q3 report (2007-08) gives analysts’ projections:

Hence, out of the 14 agencies, 6 are expecting lower than 8.7% and 7 above 8.7%. IMF has exactly the same projections as CSO. (IMF recently revised the growth rates in its India report)

And as we know agriculture estimates are usually conservative and revised upwards so we should expect growth to be around 8.8% - 9.0%.

However, projections of economy is really tough and even the best can be caught off guard. I had covered Fed’s and Riksbank’sexperience with forecasting.