India now in midst of significant economic slowdown: IMF

24 Dec 2019 Evaluate

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest report has said that India is now in the midst of a significant economic slowdown and urged the government to take urgent policy actions to address the current prolonged downturn. It also said that India’s rapid economic expansion in recent years has lifted millions of people out of poverty. However, in the first half of 2019, a combination of factors led to subdued economic growth in India. On the growth front, it said India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth is projected at 6.1% for fiscal year 2019-20 (FY20), reflecting the primarily cyclical slowdown, which would be the lowest in 7 years, and is expected to rebound to 7.0% in FY21.

With risks to the outlook tilted to the downside, the IMF called for continued sound macroeconomic management. They saw an opportunity with the strong mandate of the new government to reinvigorate the reform agenda to boost inclusive and sustainable growth. The report pinned the slowing growth of the Indian economy on the deceleration of consumption and investment that was made worse by regulatory uncertainty. It said the relatively low food prices contributed to ‘rural distress’.

On a positive note, the IMF report said over the medium term, growth is projected to gradually rise to its medium-term potential of 7.3% helped by a firming in investment and private consumption in the second half of the fiscal year. This is expected to be supported by the lagged effects of monetary policy easing, recent measures to facilitate monetary policy transmission and address corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty, and government programs to support rural consumption being rolled out.

The report said that the other contributing factors to an improvement would include continued commitment to inflation targeting, gradual macro-financial and structural reforms, including implementation of reforms initiated earlier, such as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), as well as ongoing steps to liberalise FDI (foreign direct investment) flows and further improve the ease of doing business.

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