Mr Deepak Sood

Another industry body, Assocham’s Secretary General Deepak Sood said that GDP growth of 4.7 per cent for the third quarter of fiscal 2019-20 ending December is largely on the expected lines, but some key sectors of the economy, like coal and cement are showing greenshoots which should reflect in the subsequent quarters.

“If we see the performance of eight core industries for January, the first month of the fourth quarter and compare it with the third quarter GDP numbers, the situation seems to be improving,” Sood said as per a statement. “Take for instance coal production, while it decelerated by 4.3 per cent in Q3, the trend reversed and coal output grew by 8 per cent in January. Similar trend is visible in cement, giving us hope that the growth slowdown is bottoming out.”