The pace of recovery in the economic growth will depend on India’s ability to control the pandemic

India is among the top three emerging markets in July for the first time since Covid-19 was declared a global pandemic in March as per a LiveMint report based on the results of their in- house markets tracker.

India moved three notches to the middle of the league table in June and further moved up two notches in July, just behind China and Brazil, driven by a booming stock market and an outperforming currency, as per the report.

As per Mint’s emerging tracker, India’s average market capitalization surged 7.7% to $1.9 trillion in July from $1.7 trillion in June as foreign investors poured in $1.2 billion into local equities in July said the report.

Mint’s Emerging Markets Tracker takes into account seven high-frequency indicators across 10 large emerging markets. These factors include both real activity indicators, like the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) and real GDP growth, and financial metrics, like exchange rate movements and changes in stock market capitalization. The final rankings are based on an average score that gives equal weightage to each indicator, as per the report.

India’s export performance appears better than that of many other emerging markets so far. The report said that that export data for July is available only for India, and two other countries, China and Brazil.

Further, India’s GDP growth in the March ended quarter (3.1%) was higher than most peers and has helped India’s overall ranking, said the report.

Meanwhile, the LiveMint report noted that retail inflation in India increased to 6.9% in July, way higher than Reserve Bank of India’s upper tolerance level of 6%, due to supply disruptions.

The report noted that the pace of recovery in economic activity will depend to a large extent on India’s ability to contain the pandemic.