Higher job creation, strong stock market! Speedy economic recovery underway: PHD Chamber

A speedy economic recovery is underway on the back of higher job creation, strong stock market, healthy GST collections and elevated manufacturing PMI levels in January, said industry body PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Accordingly, 9 out of the 10 indicators of QET of economic and business activity tracked by the industry body have shown positive trends in January.

Out of all the indicators, unemployment rate has shown highest sequential improvement of around 28 per cent in January 2021 over December 2020.

However, E-way Bill generation has recorded a decline. It decreased to 62.9 million in January 2021 as compared to 64.1 million in previous month of December 2020.

As per the data, January 2021 QET performance is in sync with the performance of December 2020, while it is better as compared to October and November 2020.

"Economic and business indicators such as unemployment rate, stock market, GST collections, manufacturing PMI, forex reserves, railway freight, merchandise exports, exchange rate and passenger vehicle sales have shown positive sequential growth in January 2021 as compared to December 2020," Sanjay Aggarwal, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was quoted as saying in a statement.

According to Aggarwal, the expectations of a positive GDP growth in Q3 and Q4FY21 are becoming strong.

"At this juncture, to continue the recovery momentum of economic and business activity, immediate policy attention is required towards credit access to industry and services sectors. Credit disbursement should be the top most priority at this juncture by the banking sector," Aggarwal said.

"The focus should be on ensuring the provision of hassle-free disbursements of loans vis-a-vis enhanced liquidity for MSMEs, especially in rural sectors," he added.

In addition, Aggarwal cited the need to lower interest rates for consumers and businesses, and lesser compliances for MSMEs vis-a-vis ease of doing business at the ground level.