Signs of economic recovery says India finance minister
January 15, 2014, 1:08 pm

An Indian woman vendor sells guitar-shaped balloons during a fair at Kanachack village, outskirts of Jammu, India, Nov.18, 2013 [AP]

“It is true that there has been a slowdown in 2012-13 and in current year. The slowdown reflects the world wide trend. As global economy recovers and as new measures take effect, I am confident that Indian economy will also get back step by step to the high growth path in three years”, he said.

The World Bank in a latest round of forecasts on Wednesday said India will grow by 6.2% in 2014-15.

“GDP (gross domestic product) growth in India measured at factor cost is projected to rise to over 6% in the 2014-15 fiscal year, and then to increase to 6.6% in FY2015-16 and to 7.1% in FY2016-17,” the report said.

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

Chidambaram expressed hope that the revised growth estimates for 2012-13 were likely to be better than the earlier projections.

The government is scheduled to announce revised growth estimates for 2012-13 on January 31 and the advance estimates for the current fiscal on February 7.

Chidambaram, who in 2012 oversaw cuts worth over 1 trillion rupees, is aiming to prevent the budget for the fiscal year to March 2014 from stretching beyond a deficit target of 4.8 percent of GDP.

Chidambaram on Wednesday said India’s current account deficit would be contained at $ 50 billion in the current fiscal.

The CAD soared to the all-time high of $ 88.2 billion or 4.8 per cent of the GDP in 2012-13. The government had taken several measures, including curbs on gold imports, to contain the CAD.

The Finance Minister called for prudent spending while noting that of the total imports of $ 491 billion in 2012—13, oil imports accounted for $ 164 billion.

“A developing country like India can not afford such a huge import bill or such a high level of CAD. Therefore, we were constrained to take some hard measures, including conservation measures and these measures have helped us contain the CAD,” he added.

Source: Agencies