Krishnamurthy V Subramaniam, the Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), said on Tuesday that India will continue to be a driver for global growth in the foreseeable future.
In an interview with ANI, he noted that India, ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, has witnessed consistent growth at 7 per cent plus. He predicted that India will have 8 per cent growth in the fourth quarter and called it "good" growth considering the current global economic situation.
Asked where India stands amid the current global economy, he responded, "I think India will continue to be the driver for global growth in the foreseeable future. The maximum sort of contributor to global growth. I expect growth in India to be consistently above 7 per cent in this decade. You would recall back in September 2021, when I was with the government as well. I predicted that India will emerge out of COVID with 7 per cent plus growth. So I continue to maintain that assessment."
Subramaniam, India's former Chief Economic Adviser, said that the IMF has revised its projection for growth for India in 2024 to 7.8 per cent, which he emphasised reflects overall growth.
On being asked about how India's economy is viewed in the IMF meetings being held in the US, he said, "So, if you look at the Indian economy now, ever since COVID, it has grown consistently at 7 per cent plus, 9.7 per cent the year after COVID, then 7 per cent and then this year, 8.2 per cent, 8.1 per cent, and 8.4 per cent growth in the first three quarters. So even with a much lower 7.3 per cent growth, if it so happens, actually in the fourth quarter, India will have an average of 8 per cent ..
"Now, the fund itself has revised its projection for growth for India for this year to 7.8 per cent, which is reflecting the overall growth. I do want to also mention, I think, If you look at productivity improvements, this is something that is really important. If you look at the Penn World Table's data, which is actually what economists use across the world to understand the drivers of growth,. In India, pre-2014 productivity growth annually was 1.3 percent; in contrast, the rate of productivi ..
India's GDP grew at a massive 8.4 per cent during the October-December quarter of the current financial year 2023-24, and the country continued to remain the fastest-growing major economy.
The Indian economy grew 7.8 per cent and 7.6 per cent during the preceding two quarters - April-June and July-September, according to data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in February this year.
Asked about critics' opinions about India's economy, he referred to two former chief statisticians' remarks regarding the Indian economy. He said that Pranab Sen and TCA Anant, in an interview, mentioned that there was nothing to worry about India's GDP.
"I would say two things. Firstly, if you look at the commentary given by statistical experts, there was an interview of two former chief statisticians, Pranab Sen and TCA Anant, and one former chairman of the National Statistical Commission, PC Mohanan, all of whom were asked about some of the economists' criticism of the GDP methodology and GDP numbers and they were unanimous that there is nothing to worry about or nothing to sort of that is untoward about the GDP number. So, I think that is so ..
He noted that India's growth in gross value-added versus GDP in the first quarter stood at 8.2 per cent. He said that there was no difference between growth in gross value-added and GDP.
"Only in the third quarter has there been a higher wedge, with gross value-added growing at 6.5 per cent versus 8.4 per cent for GDP, even that is quite well understood given the tax buoyancy. I've looked at the numbers over the last decade and the median number for tax buoyancy has been 1.6 in other words, a 1 per cent increase in GDP growth. Nominal GDP growth has translated into 1.6 per cent in terms of the median so in tax growth, I think when you put all these three aspects together, I thin ..
On being asked about economist Thomas Piketty's report, in which he mentioned that India's income inequality is worse than that under British rule, he stated, "If you look at the recent consumption survey that has been released and now experts have actually clarified very clearly that the 2011-12 consumption survey and the 2022-23 consumption survey are indeed comparable because the survey method is indeed the same, when you look at those numbers, both poverty and inequality have declined signif ..
"For instance, using the USD 1.9 per capita per day in 2011 PPP numbers has declined from 12 per cent to 2 per cent. That's a significant decline. Even using a higher threshold of USD 3.2 per capita per day again in 2011 purchasing power parity, the decline has been from more than 50 per cent to less than 30 per cent. So I think it's significant. The same survey numbers also reveal that inequality has declined, and this is carefully constructed data using a very large consumption survey. Both ur ..
Speaking about the decline in the Gini coefficient, he said, "For instance, the Gini coefficient has actually declined from 36 in 2012 to about I think less than 30 in 2022, this is for urban areas and rural areas, the Gini has declined from 29 to 27. So, I think the carefully constructed data from consumption clearly shows that consumption inequality has declined significantly and as for the analysis done by Thomas Piketty, I think it is a sort of mix of a lot of data, especially tax data, and ..
Source Name : Economic Times