India's slowing economy will miss the central bank's growth estimate for 2008/09, while inflation may hit 13 percent soon and will fall to single digits with sustained tight monetary policy, a government panel said on Wednesday.
The 10-year benchmark bond yield jumped 11 basis points to close at the day's high of 9.09 percent as the inflation comments strengthened expectations of further monetary tightening to add to an interest rate rise last month.
In its economic outlook for the 2008/09 financial year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Economic Advisory Council said high interest rates triggered by an earlier surge in oil and commodity prices and global market turmoil would moderate growth.
It estimated Asia's third-largest economy would grow 7.7 percent in the year to the end of March, below a recent forecast from the central bank of 8 percent. It has grown by an average of 8.8 percent over the past four years. But the report added that the central bank would have to maintain a tightening bias to trim inflation to 8-9 percent by the end of the fiscal year, from around 12 percent now.
C. Rangarajan, the outgoing chairman of the panel, told a news conference that inflation, which has nearly tripled this year due to strong prices of oil and foods, could reach 13 percent soon. "The downside risk to our growth expectations in 2008/09 is primarily from a further deterioration in global conditions with its attendant impact on India - be it in the sphere of oil prices or capital markets," the panel said in its report.