Expressing anxiety over mounting protectionism in global markets, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian has said that India now has a much bigger role in ensuring that world markets remained open in order to sustain 8-10 percent economic growth. He also said that the country seen fastest growth during the period when exports were the highest.
Subramanian has stated that middle income countries have been the greatest beneficiaries of the open market policy or globalisation and the continuation of that framework is in their interest. However, he noted that the idea of protectionism gained momentum recently after Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States and the UK decided to leave the European Union. He said that recently, the Trump administration has indicated that it wants to relook at trade agreements with countries where the United States buys more than it sells, including China, Japan, South Korea and Germany. He added that Britain has also started the process of exit from European Union.
CEA further said that although India has liberalised its FDI rules in a number of sectors, there was still need to open the economy further. He also said that the country has already done a lot to attract foreign direct investments (FDI) and would continue to do more. Talking about ultra-loose monetary policies adopted by various developed countries, he said that they were much less worried than the early indications of a pullout by the U.S. for a number of important but obvious reasons.