Ratings agency Moody’s Analytics on Friday projected India’s gross domestic product, or GDP, to grow at 6.1% in the financial year 2024-’25, down from 7.7% GDP growth in 2023-’24, reported PTI.

The report, APAC Outlook: Listening Through the Noise, said that India’s economic output is 4% lower than it would have been without the Covid-19 pandemic and its aftershocks, including hiccups in supply chains and the Ukraine-Russia war.

“Economies in South and Southeast Asia will see some of the strongest output gains this year, but their performance is flattered by a delayed post-pandemic rebound,” it said. “We expect India’s GDP to grow 6.1% in 2024 after 7.7% last year.”

The report also said that the Asia Pacific region will grow 3.8% this year, as compared to a growth of 2.5% in the global economy.

An analysis of the region’s GDP figures relative to its trajectory before the pandemic in 2020 showed that India and Southeast Asia have seen some of the largest output losses worldwide, the report said. It is only now that the region is beginning to recover.

However, the report authored by Stefan Angrick, Senior Economist, and Jeemin Bang, Associate Economist at Moody’s Analytics said that the projection for China and India is more uncertain in terms of inflation, reported PTI.

The report said that with consumer price inflation in India hovering at around 5%, close to the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India’s target range of 2% to 6%, there is no “clear evidence of a trend towards slowing price pressures”, said the report.

Last week, the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee projected the real gross domestic product growth for 2024-’25 at 7%.

The committee also decided to keep the repo rate unchanged at 6.50% for the seventh consecutive time. The repo rate is the interest rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial banks. The Monetary Policy Committee decides on changes to it every two months.