India prepared for Fed taper: Finance Minister
January 22, 2014, 5:13 pm

A group of more than 2500 politicians, business leaders and academics are gathering to discuss the state of global economy for five days that opened today at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in the Swiss ski resort of Davos [AP]

“We have done a lot of preparatory work. There will be some consequences on emerging economies but I think we are better prepared now to face the taper,” he said.

“Fiscal consolidation has taken place, there’s more FDI flowing into India. We’ve added to our reserves, the rupee is stable and a number of other measures have been taken to bring stability into the capital market,” he added.

The Federal Reserve has announced trimming of its $85 billion monthly stimulus after US economic indicators improved.

Chidambaram on Wednesday said India is poised to clock 5 per cent growth in the current fiscal and over 6 per cent a year after.

The Indian economy, he said while addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, has “stabilised and it is poised to return to high growth path and step by step we will go back to 8 per cent growth rate“.

In 2014, Chidambaram said the country would see a growth of about 5 per cent, “but next fiscal we will cross 6 per cent“.

India’s growth rate slipped to a decade-low of 5 per cent in 2012-13 fiscal.

Seven Indian ministers and over 120 top Indian business and media leaders are attending the Davos 2014 meet.

A group of more than 2500 politicians, business leaders and academics are gathering to discuss the state of global economy for five days that opened today at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.

Meanwhile a new Oxfam report on the widening disparities between the rich and poor, released ahead of the 2014 Davos meet has criticized the “global elite” which includes many of those attending the WEF conference.

The report suggests extreme inequality to have been borne out of “financial deregulation, tax havens and secrecy, anti-competitive business practice, lower tax rates on high incomes and investments and cuts or underinvestment in public services for the majority”.

TBP and Agencies