Indian economy posted its best performance in a year in March: Mint tracker

The Indian economy delivered its best performance in a year in March as the rupee stabilised after months of volatility, and labour-intensive exports and eight core sectors witnessed some improvement, according to the latest Mint macro tracker. Of the 16 high-frequency indicators tracked by Mint, seven indicators were in green, three in red, and six in amber.

The last time India performed better than this was exactly a year ago, in March 2024, when eight indicators were in green and three in red.

Also Read: Mint Primer | India’s economy looks strong. What could go wrong?

For each indicator, the value in each month is assigned a colour code (red, amber, and green) to denote its relative position to the five-year average (red denotes worse, amber denotes it is in line with the average range, and green denotes better).

This was a significant improvement from the past six months, when at five-six indicators were consistently in the red. These included the rupee's movement, import cover, labour-intensive exports, trade balance, and broadband subscriber base, among others.

The external sector showed some recovery, though import cover remained in the red. The improved performance of the rupee and labour-intensive exports pulled them from red to green and amber zones, respectively.

While passenger vehicle sales continued to contract in March year-on-year, their performance was in line with the five-year average range.

The ease of living segment—covering retail and core inflation, real rural wage growth, and labour force participation—continued to perform strongly, with all four indicators remaining in the green for the sixth consecutive month.

Also Read: Indian economy can hit 6.5% growth if US trade deal finalized by Oct: Niti Aayog member Arvind Virmani

Meanwhile, the consumer and producer segments remained largely unchanged from the previous month.

Mint macro tracker, which provides a monthly comprehensive report on the state of the economy, based on trends in 16 high-frequency indicators. The tracker has been running since October 2018.

Also Read: Mint Primer: US GDP contracts 0.3% in Q1—why the IMF still sees no recession

Methodology note: While calculating the five-year average, data for some indicators for April-May 2020 and April-May 2021 have been removed to eliminate lockdown-induced skews in the trend. However, the five-year averages may still show high figures due to sustained base effects in several indicators in 2021 and 2022.

Monthly standings will get updated retrospectively as more data comes in.

For inflation, the red/green coding is reversed.