India should ‘recommit’ to cutting on debt, focus on fiscal transparency: IMF

26 Dec 2019 Evaluate

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest report has said that India should ‘recommit’ to cutting on debt by bringing down its public sector borrowing requirements and enhance focus on having a greater fiscal transparency to help investors make informed economic decisions. It also said despite some improvement in reported fiscal deficits, debt as a share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) remains little changed over the past decade partly due to increases in off-budget financing.

It highlighted that as part of the Group of 20, India has already committed to publishing general government fiscal information on a quarterly basis, which should enable better monitoring and faster policy reactions. As a complement, India will have to improve the collection and disclosure of information on public enterprises, especially at the state level, in order to better anticipate possible cases of financial distress and minimise their costs for taxpayers. It noted that much of the discussion regarding fiscal policies in India focuses on its central and states' government deficits.

As per the IMF estimates, a broader and more relevant measure of the government's fiscal position - and its bearing on the economy - is the public sectors borrowing requirement, which has risen to about 8.5% of GDP. In India's case, it said household's net financial savings have been lower than the public sector borrowing requirement in recent years, and added that it implies that private investment projects face stiff competition for funding, making financing more costly and preventing potentially viable projects from being initiated. The high borrowing requirement of the public sector also holds India back as it strives to catch up with more advanced countries by making private-sector investment more costly.

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