New Delhi, Feb 10 (ANI): India forecasted that annual economic growth would accelerate to 7.4 percent in the year ending in March after its statisticians changed the way they measure Asia's third-largest economy and showed it clocked faster growth than China in the December quarter. The statistical recovery is in large measure due to changes both in the way authorities calculate gross domestic product (GDP) and the base year. The new estimate is sharply higher than the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) growth projection of around 5.5 percent for the year under the old method. It marks a dramatic turnaround for an economy that a fortnight ago was assumed to be struggling to gain momentum under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's reform-minded government. India now measures GDP by market prices instead of factor costs, to take into account gross value addition in goods and services as well as indirect taxes. The base year has been shifted to 2011/12 from 2004/05 earlier.
