Highlights Of Indian Economic Survey — Summary

This document covers

1. Background
2. Summary of Economic Survey 2024-25
3. Highlights of Economic Survey

1. Background

The Economic Survey presents a comprehensive examination of the performance of the Indian economy during the preceding financial year, comprising economic trends, policies, challenges, and future prospects. It additionally functions as a framework for policy development and budgetary planning.

The Economic Survey will be published one day before the budget.

The Economic survey for FY 2024-25 is presented by Hon'ble Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman on 31 ^st January 2025

2. Summary of Economic Survey 2024-25

3. Highlights of Economic Survey

The highlights of Economic Survey are as follows

• GDP and GVA: India's real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and GVA (Gross Value Added) is estimated @ 6.4% in FY 2025. It is expected that the real GDP growth to grow between 6.3%-6.5% in FY 2026
• Retail Inflation: Retail headline inflation has declined from 5.4 per cent in FY24 to 4.9 per cent in April –December 2024 where as Food inflation, measured by the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI), has increased from 7.5 per cent in FY24 to 8.4 per cent in FY25 (April-December).
• RBI and the IMF project India’s consumer price inflation will gradually align with the target of around 4 % in FY26.
• The global economy on an average grew by 3.3% in 2023 against the IMF projection of 3.2% growth in the next five years.
• Capital expenditure (CAPEX) improved continuously from FY21 to FY24. Post general elections, CAPEX grew YOY by 8.2% during July –November 2024.
• Geopolitical tensions like Russia-Ukraine and Israel-hamas and global trade policy risks continue to pose significant challenges to the global economic outlook.
  
  

• External Sector:
  
  • Overall exports grew by 6% (YOY) in the first nine months of FY25, with the services sector expanding by 11.6%.
  • India's current account deficit (CAD) stood at 1.2% of GDP in Q2 of FY25<
  • India's FOREX reserves stood at USD 640.3 billion as of the end of December 2024, sufficient to cover 10.9 months of imports and approximately 90% of the country's external debt.
    
    
• Investment and Infrastructure:
  
  • The Union Government's capital expenditure on key infrastructure sectors has grown at a rate of 38.8 per cent from FY20 to FY24
  • Under road network, 5853 km of National Highways was constructed in FY25 (April-Dec)
  • Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016, ensured regulation and transparency of Real Estate sector. By January 2025, over 1.38 lakh real estate projects registered, and 1.38 lakh complaints were resolved
  • A 15.8 per cent year-on-year increase in renewable energy capacity of solar and wind power by December 2024.
    
    
• Industry:
  
  • The industrial sector expected to grow by 6.2 % in FY-25
  • In FY24, the Indian automobile domestic sales grew by 12.5%
  • As per the WIPO Report 2022, India ranks sixth among the top 10 patent filing offices globally.
  • To provide equity funding to MSMEs with the potential to scale up, the government launched the Self-Reliant India Fund with a corpus of ₹50,000 crore.
    
    
• Services:
  
  • The average growth rate of the services sector was 8 % in the pre-pandemic years (FY13 -FY20). It stood at 8.3% in the post-pandemic period (FY23–FY25).
  • India held a 4.3 % share in global services exports in 2023, ranking seventh worldwide
  • India’s services export growth surged to 12.8 % during April–November FY25, up from 5.7 % in FY24.
  • Information and computer-related services grew at a trend rate of 12.8% over the last decade (FY13–FY23), increasing their share of overall GVA from 6.3 % to 10.9%
    
    
• Agriculture and Food Management:
  
  • The ‘Agriculture and Allied Activities‘sector contributes approximately 16% of the country’s GDP for FY24 (PE) at current prices.
  • As of 31st October, over 11 crore farmers have benefitted under PM-KISAN, while 23.61 lakh farmers are enrolled under PM Kisan Mandhan
    
    
• Employment and Skill Development:
  
  • The unemployment rate for individuals has been declines to 3.2% in FY 2023- 24 from 6% in 2017-18. The labour force participation rate (LFPR) and the worker-to-population ratio(WPR) have also increased.
  • The net payroll additions under EPFO have more than doubled in the past six years, signalling healthy growth in formal employment
    
    
• Artificial Intelligence:
  
  • Developers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) promise to usher in a new age, where a bulk of the economically valuable work is automated
  • Establishing Artificial Intelligence Centres for Excellence (CoE) at top educational institutions across India