(Riya Singh, Intern Journalist): The pace of economic recovery improved during the previous week on account of divergent trends in indicators like mobility and employment, according to a Nomura note on Monday. The Nomura India Business Resumption Index (NIBRI) increased to 71.8 in the week ending August 9, after being stuck around the 70 marks for the past three weeks. NIBRI is a weekly tracker of the pace at which economic activity normalizes.
According to the note, while Google’s retail and recreation mobility index and Apple’s driving index picked up incrementally, Google’s workplace mobility worsened, the note said. Similarly, the labor participation rate inched up to 40.6% compared to 40.5% last week but the unemployment rate rose to 8.7% from 7.2% the week earlier, it said. Power demand also contracted by about 0.8%, which was an improvement for -2% recorded in the previous week.
The data available for July so far suggested an uneven recovery which largely reflected pent up demand, it said, adding rural demand performed better comparatively. The weekly tracker has shown a rather bumpy recovery path as against the expected smooth upward curve. After hitting a lockdown low of about 45 at the end of April, the NIBRI made a sharp recovery by mid-June to 70.5.
However, the recovery lost its momentum as multiple states imposed fresh lockdowns in July. This was reflected in the NIBRI dropping to 66.8 in the week ending July 12 before stagnating at the 70 marks. Nomura estimated a 5.2% contraction for India’s growth during the ongoing fiscal.
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