India's economic growth accelerates to 9.3%

By agencies   |   Wednesday, 31 May 2006, 19:30 IST
Printer Print Email Email
NEW DELHI: India's economic growth accelerated last quarter as computer related companies hired code writers and engineers, spurring spending on houses, travel and mobile phones. The government said Asia's third biggest economy expanded 9.3 percent from a year earlier in the final three months of the year ended March 31, following a revised 7.5 percent gain in the previous quarter. That compares with a 7.9 percent median forecast in a survey and is the fastest after China among the world's 20 biggest economies. Economic growth in India last quarter compares with a 10.3 percent pace in China's economy, which is almost three times larger, 3.6 percent in the U.S. and 2 percent in the dozen countries that share the euro. Growth was 8.4 percent in the financial year ended March 31, the government said, faster than its Feb. 7 projection of 8.1 percent. The economy expanded 7.5 percent in the previous year. The government wants the economy to create 10 million jobs a year to improve incomes and lives of a third of India's 1.1 billion people who, according to the World Bank, live on less than $1 a day.