SME Times News Bureau | 23 Jan, 2016
Indian economy is resilient and sustainable despite uncertainty and volatility in world economic system and we look forward to a stable global economic situation shortly, said Dr. Mahesh Gupta, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
India is increasingly becoming an emerging economic power as its resilience, significance and sustainability have been observed strengthening year after year. The country is not only the fastest moving economy but its economic share in the world GDP is also increasing at a significant pace from 2.62% in the year 2010 to 2.98% in the year 2015, said Dr. Gupta.
India recorded a higher growth of 7.3 per cent in 2014-15 as compared to 6.9 per cent growth achieved in 2013-14 and 5.1 per cent in 2012-13, despite the slowdown witnessed in the world economy, growth in India remained robust, buoyed by strong investor sentiment and the positive effect on real incomes of the recent fall in international commodity prices.
World Bank has projected India’s growth at 7.3 per cent for 2015-16. It further expects India to grow by 7.8 per cent in 2016-17 and 7.9 per cent in 2017-18 and will be the fastest growing economy in the world in the next three years.
India is well positioned to withstand volatility in global financial markets due to strengthening domestic business cycle, supportive policy environment and reduced external vulnerabilities such as current account deficit has declined to about 1.2% of GDP; foreign exchange reserves have risen to US$ 352.1 billion as on December, 2015; FDI inflows have almost doubled to US$ 59 billion in 2015, said Dr. Mahesh Gupta.
In addition to this, public investment has picked up with faster clearance of key projects; better infrastructure and greater ease of doing business are promoting private investment; and more generous benefits and wages for public employees are supporting private consumption, he said.
According to the IMF, pickup in global growth is weak and uneven across economies, while India and parts of emerging Asia are bright spots, projected to grow at a robust pace. The global growth for the year 2016 is projected at 3.4% and 3.6% in 2017, slightly lower than the forecast issued in October 2015.
Going ahead, risks to India's growth story are mostly domestic, which must be addressed with strong reforms push to foster strong economic growth, such as improving the ease of doing business to boost producers’ sentiments, implementation of GST to unfold India growth story, focus on infra development to reduce transaction costs, reforms in labour laws and land acquisition to boost factory output, fostering level playing field for all and generating more and more domestic demand, said Dr. Gupta.
These measures would go a long way to strengthen India’s Growth Story and put India’s growth on high road not only for years but for decades, he said.
