Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) President Shobana Shobana Kamineni has expressed her optimism that the country can witness 10 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate by fiscal year 2019-20 on the back of enormous opportunities available in the Indian economy. For the current year, she also expected GDP growth to touch 8 per cent.
Shobana Kamineni has stated that this can be achieved by targeting one per cent additional growth each year that would also lead to create five million jobs each year. She said ‘as of now, we are creating about 3.7 million jobs annually’. She further highlighted that the drivers for this step up in growth would include the benefits from roll out of GST regime, greater participation of women in the labour force, urbanization process and government spending of up to Rs 30 lakh crore in various infrastructure projects. Adding further, she said that the urbanization process will drive greater economic activity in areas such as construction and the entire construction sector can add 30 million jobs in the next 10 years.
Favouring a reduction in corporate tax, Kamineni said that the CII would continue to request the government for quick action in reducing income tax for all corporates. She noted that the 25% rate is currently applicable only for companies with turnover up to Rs 50 crore. She also said that eventually, the corporate tax rate could be brought down to 18% together with the removal of all incentives and added that this will lead to much better tax compliance.