India's economy is expected to grow from 5.4 to 5.9 percent in the 2014-15 fiscal year, said an official economic survey published Wednesday.
The Economic Survey 2013-14, tabled on Wednesday in the Lok Sabha or Lower House of Parliament, said a poor monsoon, external environment and poor investment are dampening the economic growth of India.
"There are downside risks to the economy arising from a poor monsoon, the external environment and the poor investment climate.. . The combination of domestic structural constraints, inflationary pressures, particularly food inflation and uncertainty in the global economy, has affected growth and posed challenges for macroeconomic stability," said the Survey.
It said the key reasons for poor performance of India's economy over two consecutive fiscal years have been contraction in mining activities and deceleration in manufacturing output, worsened by considerable deceleration in investment, particularly by the private corporate sector.
Food inflation remained stubbornly high with prices of commodity like fruits and vegetables as well as egg, meat and fish contributing greatly to the high prices, said the survey.
India's balance-of-payments position improved in the 2013-14 fiscal year with current account deficit at 32.4 billion U.S. dollars, or 1.7 percent of GDP, as against 88.2 billion U.S. dollars, or 4.7 percent of GDP in the 2012-13 fiscal year.
India's exports stood at 312.6 billion U.S. dollars in the 2013- 14 fiscal year, 4.1 percent compared to the previous year's negative growth of 1.8 percent.
Import growth decelerated from 0.3 percent in 2012-13 to a negative 8.3 percent in 2013-14, owing to fall in non-oil imports by 12.8 percent, primarily due to restrictions on gold imports, it said./.