India's Second Quarter GDP Beats Forecast To Clock In At 4.8 Percent, Led By Gains In Financial Services, Energy And Agriculture Sectors

India's economy grew at 4.8 percent in the July-September quarter, official data showed Friday, led mainly by growth in the financial services, electricity and gas, and agriculture sectors.

Analysts had expected the economy to grow by 4.6 percent instead, Reuters reported, noting that September's gross domestic product, or GDP, figure is the fourth successive quarter of growth below 5 percent.

According to the official release, ‘financing, insurance, real estate and business services’ grew at 10.0 percent and ‘electricity, gas and water supply’ grew at 7.7 percent while ‘agriculture, forestry and fishing' grew at 4.6 percent, leading the modest uptick in the GDP number over the previous quarter.

India's economy has struggled in recent years, bogged down by the slow pace of reforms, a heavy deficit, a volatile rupee, and rising inflation, which have offset the government's and central bank's efforts to set the country back on the double-digit growth path that it had briefly promised to set out on, before the beginning of the global financial crisis.

The country is gearing up for general elections next May, and a majority of economists surveyed by Reuters in October expect the country's economy to slow down further in 2013-2014.