Govt must focus on bank clean-up, labor reforms to revive economic growth: Gita Gopinath

17 Dec 2019 Evaluate

With India’s GDP growth slowing to over six-year low of 4.5 percent in July-September, IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath has said that the government should focus on structural reforms like clean-up of banks and labor reforms to address the slowdown in domestic demand. Given the cyclical position and the structural challenges of the Indian economy at this point, she recommend that policies focus on managing the slowdown in domestic demand, and on boosting productivity growth and supporting employment creation in the medium term. Recommending a series of key policy priorities for the government, she said, 'Politically, the time -- early in the government's second term -- is right for a structural reform push.'

Gopinath has stated that the policy priorities of the government should also include a credible fiscal consolidation path that is more ambitious than currently envisaged by the government. She also noted that this is needed to reduce the high level of debt and reduce crowding out which would free up financial resources for private investment. She added that this should be driven by subsidy-spending rationalization and tax-base enhancing measures.

In this regard, IMF Chief Economist advocated, among others, three policy priorities for the government. First is to accelerate the clean-up of the banks, other financial institution, and corporate balance sheets and enhance governance of public sector banks to revive bank credit and enhance the efficiency of credit provision, while monitoring closely emerging risks from the liquidity stress in non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and enhancing supervision and regulation of the NBFCs.

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