📘 Q.5 IAS Prelims 2022 — Economics (Real Sector vs Financial Sector)
🧷 Authentic Classroom Explanation by IAS Monk
📌 The Question:
Which of the following activities constitute the real sector in the economy?
- Farmers harvesting their crops
- Textile mills converting raw cotton into fabrics
- A commercial bank lending money to a trading company
- A corporate body issuing Rupee Denominated Bonds overseas
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1, 3 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
✅ Correct Answer: (a) 1 and 2 only
🧠 Classroom Explanation
- The real sector of an economy consists of activities that directly produce goods and services, thereby contributing to real GDP.
- Statement 1 is correct
- Farming and harvesting crops involve direct production of goods.
- Agriculture is a core component of the real sector.
- Statement 2 is correct
- Textile mills transform raw cotton into finished fabric, a manufacturing activity.
- Manufacturing lies squarely within the real sector.
- Statement 3 is NOT correct
- Lending money is a financial intermediation activity, not production.
- This belongs to the financial sector.
- Statement 4 is NOT correct
- Issuing rupee-denominated bonds overseas is a capital-raising financial activity.
- It facilitates finance but does not create goods or services.
Hence, only activities 1 and 2 belong to the real sector.
🔍 Curiosity Raiser
Why can an economy grow financially without growing in real output—and why does that often precede economic crises?
🧘 IAS Monk Whisper
Money may move the world,
but only labour and land
create it.
