Economic Survey, 2017-18

Economic Survey 2017-18

Question: According to the Economic Survey, 2017-18 presented in Parliament on January 29, 2018, what percentage of growth rate is estimated to be of GDP growth rate for year 2017-18?
(a) 7.5 percent
(b) 6.5 percent
(c) 8.0 percent
(d) 6.75 percent
Answer: (d) 
Related Facts:

  • On January 29th, 2018, Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley presented ‘Economic Survey- 2017-18’ on the table of Parliament.
  • The main point ofEconomic Survey, 2017-18-
  • It is estimated that the growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) will remain 6.75 percent in2017-18.
  • GDP is estimated to be 7 to7.5 percent in the coming fiscal year 2018-19.
  • As per the first Advance Estimates (1st AE), released by Central Statistics Office (CSO), growth rate of Gross Value of Added (GVA) at constant basic prices is estimated at 6.1 per cent in 2017-18, as compared to 6.6 per cent in 2016-17.
  • Similarly ‘Agriculture & allied’, and ‘Industry’ sector, are expected to grow at 2.1 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively.
  • In 2017-18, service sector is expected to grow at 8.3 per cent, as compared to 7.7 per cent in 2016-17.
  • During the year 2017-18, the average inflation rate remained at the lowest in the last 6 years.
  • Headline inflation as per Consumer Price Index – Combined (CPI-C) declined to 3.3 per cent in 2017-18.
  • India remained the eighth largest exporter of commercial services in the world in 2016 (WTO, 2017) with a share of 3.4 per cent.
  • This is double the share of India’s merchandise exports in the world.
  • India’s services export growth returned to positive territory with 5.7 per cent growth in 2016-17 from growth of (-) 2.4 per cent in 2015- 16.
  • Services exports recorded a robust growth of 16.2 per cent during April-September 2017.
  • India’s service sector imports also exhibited a much higher growth of 17.4 per cent in April-September 2017.
  • Net services receipts rose by 14.6 per cent during April-September of 2017-18 as compared to H1 of 2016-17.
  • The Industrial Production Index (IIP), which is a volume index with base year, has shown an increase of 3.2% in the industrial production during the period April-November in year 2017-18.
  • In November 2017, the IIP registered a growth of 8.4 per cent to take the April-November growth to 3.2 per cent over the corresponding period of previous year.
  • The eight Core infrastructure supportive industries, viz. coal, crude oil, natural gas, petroleum refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement and electricity that have a total weight of nearly 40 per cent in the IIP.
  • All theses infrastructure attained a cumulative growth of 3.9 per cent during April-November 2017- 18 over the corresponding period of previous year.
  • The production growth of coal, natural gas, refinery products, steel, cement and electricity were positive
  • Steel production has seen a significant increase while crude oil and fertilizer production recorded a slight decline during this period.
  • Total foreign direct investment inflows increased by 8 percent, i.e., to 60.08 billion dollars during the year 2016-17, compared to 55.56 billion dollars in the previous year.
  • In the year 2017-18 (April-September), the total FDI inflow was $ 33.75 billion.
  • By the end of September, 2017, the total number of mobile connections in India was 1207.04 million, of these 501.99 million were in rural areas and 705.05 million in urban areas.
  • 2017-18 (April-September) the number of domestic air travelers in the country was 57.5 million.
  • These recorded an increase of 16 percent compared to the same period last year.
  • Describing the achievements of the energy sectorSurvey, the energy capacity of India has increased to 3, 30,860.6 MW by November 2017.
  • During the year 2017-18 (April-October), FDI equity inflows in service sector increased by 15.0 percent.
  • In the first eight months of the GST of July 1, 2017, the number of indirect tax payers increased by 50 percent.
  • The increase in the direct tax collection ofcenter has been consistent with the previous year and is expected to meet its target of 13.7 percent, while indirect taxes increased by 18.3 percent during April-November, 2017.
  • India’s share of 70 percent of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
  • India’s internal business share in the field of goods and services is 60 percent of GDP.
  • Total food grain production was 275.7 million tones (fourth advance estimate) during the year 2016-17.
  • According to the budget estimate 2017-18 Fiscal deficit is 3.2 percent of the gross domestic product.
  • The country’s foreign exchange reserves reached $ 409.4 billion by December 2017, while it was $ 370.3 billion in 2016-17.
  • 12 January 2018, the total foreign exchange reserves went up to 413.8 billion dollars.
  • As a proportion of the GDP, the expenditure on social services by the Central and the States was being made in the period of 2012-13 to 2014-15 in the range of 6 per cent.
  • Expenditure on social services is 6.6 percent in the year 2017-18 (budget estimate).

Reference:     
http://mofapp.nic.in:8080/economicsurvey/Volume-I/Hindi-Volume-1-Combined.pdf
http://mofapp.nic.in:8080/economicsurvey/Volume-I/Hindi-Volume-II-Combined.pdf