SME Times News Bureau | 28 Dec, 2012
Finance Minister P Chidambaram Thursday said some tough decisions taken by the government recently may have caused "immediate pain" but were necessary to bring down fiscal deficit.
Addressing the National Development Council (NDC) meeting in New Delhi, the Finance Minister said, "...some measures may cause immediate pain but this was necessary to ensure that the fiscal deficit came down to 3 per cent in the next three years."
He said that it was imperative to contain the fiscal deficit by augmenting resources and controlling expenditure.
Steps were also being taken to contain the Current Account Deficit (CAD), he added.
He said that there was need to control gold imports which contributed USD 64 billion to the CAD.
Chidambaram lauded the States for containing the fiscal deficit to 2.1 percent of the GDP and also for generating revenue surplus of 0.75 percent.
FM has expressed optimism that the Indian economy will continue to grow at a healthy rate even as the global economies face recession.
"This is because our economy has strong fundamentals and factors such as high savings rate, growing services sector, a large middle class which continues to create demand and technical and qualified manpower and the youth," he added.