The Indian economy is estimated to grow at 1.8 percent during the third quarter of fiscal 2021, according to global research firm HSBC.

“We estimate Q3FY21 gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 1.8 percent,” said Pranjul Bhandari, chief economist at HSBC India, on Friday.

The growth is likely to recover marginally on account of a rebound in manufacturing and government spending. A CNBC-TV18 poll estimates growth at 0.6 percent versus negative 7.5 percent on a sequential basis.

The government will release its third-quarter GDP numbers today.

Speaking in an interview to CNBC-TV18, Bhandari said, “We are at 1.8 percent year-on-year (YoY) rise for the quarter ending December and the reason is the whole pent up demand; the demand for goods in the last couple of months, the pent up demand for services that has started picking up, all of that will show in that number and also the government started spending in November and December. Therefore, it’s going to make for a good recovery and that is what we are going for.”

On the manufacturing front, she said, “We are expecting manufacturing growth at a positive of 5 percent; Index of Industrial Production (IIP) manufacturing for the quarter grew at about 1.5 percent. This will be higher than that because even the corporate results have been doing well for the December quarter. So bringing in some of the value-added rise we have manufacturing growth going into the positive of 5 percent. In fact, that’s one of the biggest drivers of the number that we are going to see.”

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(Edited by : Ankit Gohel)