Economic recovery or not, most of the macro indicators are trending upwards

The growth in bank credit, at 6.67 percent in August 2021, is the highest in 16 months. Non-food credit growth is at 6.7 percent.A large part of this has been driven by the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme, which has encouraged banks to lend without having to really fear about repayment, since loans under the scheme are 100 percent guaranteed by the government.

The fiscal deficit numbers paint a clear picture of the strain Covid has placed on government finances.At Rs 4,68,009 crore, the fiscal deficit is only 31.1 percent of the full year target. That is, after five months, the fiscal deficit is less than a third of the full-year target.That’s not bad. At this time last year, the fiscal deficit was 109.3 percent of the full year target, a reflection of the simultaneous increase in government expenditure and the decrease in tax revenue.

Exports have been an outlier in that, not only have they reached pre-pandemic levels, but they have exceeded them. In fact, India’s exports have never looked so good. Hitting $33.4 billion in September 2021, this is the first time that merchandise exports have crossed $100 billion in any one quarter.And that’s not counting services exports, which have been seeing double-digit growth this entire financial year.

GST revenue came in at Rs 1.17 lakh crore in September 2021. That’s the third consecutive month it has been higher than Rs 1.1 lakh crore.In fact, GST collections have been higher than Rs 1 lakh crore in 11 of the last 12 months. The average collection in the last 12 months have been Rs 1.13 lakh crore.

Whether we can call it a recovery or not, the fact is that most of the macro indicators are trending upwards, at least till now.