Growth Increases strongly in India: IMF

Even as overall growth in the G20 slowed in the fourth quarter of 2011, growth increased strongly in India and Indonesia, modestly in the United States, but slowed somewhat in China, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The G20 Quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth 

of +0.7% in the last three months of 2011 compared with +0.9% in the third quarter, according to provisional results from this first time release of the G20 GDP aggregate.

In 2011 as a whole, G20 GDP rose by +2.8%, a marked deceleration compared with the +5.0% growth recorded in 2010.

The G20 GDP aggregate masks diverging patterns among the world's largest economies, IMF said noting in India and Indonesia growth increased strongly from + 0.9% to + 1.8% and from + 1.4% to + 2.1% respectively.

However in terms of annual percentage change and percentage change on the same quarter of the previous year India's growth rate fell from 7% in the third quarter to 6.5 percent in the fourth quarter.

In the United States, GDP growth increased to +0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with +0.5% in the third quarter, but slowed in China to +2.0%, compared with +2.3% in the third quarter.

In Japan, economic growth decreased to -0.2 percent, following the strong rebound (+1.7 percent) in the third quarter. GDP fell by -0.3 percent in both the European Union and the euro area in the fourth quarter of 2011, the first fall since the second quarter of 2009.