FICCI President urges govt to pump economy by increasing investments to arrest slowdown

15 Jan 2020 Evaluate

With an aim to arrest India’s economic slowdown and accelerate growth, new Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) President Sangita Reddy has urged the government not to worry too much about the fiscal deficit and try to pump the economy by increasing investments. She said ‘we need to infuse capital into the economy. The fact is that there is a slowdown of the GDP but to pump prime economy, adequate capital is really the need of the hour and therefore the preposition which we put forward is that we should not worry for a small expansion in fiscal deficit.’

She also said that the government should find a mechanism to infuse Rs 1.5 to Rs 2 lakh crore into the economy as it would help to spur consumption. With the slowdown in economic growth, the government will face difficulty in adhering to the fiscal deficit road map laid down in the FRBM Act. With the increased consumption or purchasing power of people, investments and the overall sentiment of the corporate India will improve and this will create a virtuous cycle, which grows the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Reddy further said the government has enough fiscal space to infuse money into the system because the fiscal deficit is still under control. She noted that one mechanism to do this would be to raise money from the RBI and added that the government should also simultaneously pursue disinvestment programme in a time-bound manner. Besides, the government aims to restrict the fiscal deficit to 3.3% of the GDP for the financial year ending March 2020. If there will be well articulated and executed plan, then the expansion in fiscal deficit will not affect India's ratings.

She highlighted that there is a need to focus on boosting exports. She said ‘we are only 1.7% of global trade and this is miniscule for country like India and we should ramp this up’. Exports during April-November 2019-20 dipped by about 2% to $212 billion. On ease of doing business, she said there is more work needs to done by reducing amount of regulation, and further simplification. She said ‘we have improved but definitely there is a more scope’.

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