NEW DELHI: Housing Development Finance Corp (HDFC) chairman Deepak Parekh on Tuesday exuberated confidence that the country’s macroeconomic fundamentals are strong and the economy is well on the recovery path. Parameters such as foreign reserves, buoyant capital markets and agriculture growth remain resilient and all these point to an economic turnaround. However, the tepid credit growth remains a key laggard, he added.
“Owing to the second wave, the Indian economy is likely to mirror a similar trend seen in FY21, where the first half of the financial year is weaker and the second half is significantly stronger. However, the world is still susceptible to recurring waves of infections and the overall economic recovery will hence remain uneven and patchy,” Parekh said in his address at the 44th annual general meeting of HDFC.
He further pointed out that the inherent demand for home loans continues to be strong, and even in real estate, most companies have not given up on their office spaces during the pandemic. Demand scenarios for both affordable housing and high-end properties are strong. The average size of housing loans stood at Rs 29.5 lakh, compared with Rs 27 lakh in the previous year.
With the e-commerce boom, he said that the next phase of growth is seen coming from the commercial realty sector. “Demand is coming from warehousing and fulfillment centres,” he said, adding with the build-up of digital infrastructure, demand for data centres is also on the rise. “These are the segments of the real estate sector that have potential to grow immensely,” Parekh said.