Like US, India may release retail sales data

NEW DELHI: As more global retailers flock to India, the country may soon start releasing retail sales data, a key economic indicator, which will help policymakers get a better picture of the state of the economy.

Textiles minister Dayanidhi Maran told TOI that the textiles commissioner will start discussions in the second or third week of January on the issue and work out a mechanism for collecting and interpreting this key data.
“The Indian economy will slowly start depending on the retailing sector. It will be a good indicator of the buoyancy of our economy. It will be the right indicator for our economic growth,” Maran said.

He said more structured centralised retail was coming to the country and that would help in collecting data as most of them would have online data. Maran said large US and European brands were coming to India and they would manufacture and sell their products in the domestic market. “The trend is changing, from a net exporter, we are becoming a net consumer,” he added.

New data sets have emerged in recent years to provide a better understanding of the growing Indian economy but the country still lacks credible retail sales data as a large segment remains in the unorganised sector. In the US and other developed economies, retail sales data helps policymakers understand the spending and demand patterns in the economy and this data serves as a key economic indicator.

Economists said introduction of retail sales data will help get a better picture of sales and investment pattern of companies but getting data from the unorganised sector may prove to be difficult.

“It will be a good beginning but any surveybased data will face the problem of the unorganised sector. It will be difficult to procure data from the unorganised sector. In the US, retail is mostly organised,” said Kotak Mahindra Bank chief economist Indranil Pan.

The domestic textile industry accounts for about 14% of industrial production and 4% of GDP and adds 17% to the country’s exports. Over 35 million people derive direct employment and the sector is the second largest employment provider after agriculture.

Speaking about the country’s cotton output, Maran said the output of 325 lakh bales for the current year may not be met as a result of various factors including floods in Andhra Pradesh which hurt output.

“Arrival of cotton from Gujarat was very very slow whereas Maharashtra got a good crop. There are hopes that the surplus of Maharashtra might help us in at least meeting 325 lakh bales but the Cotton Advisory Board meeting in January will confirm this,” Maran said.