Chief Economic Adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran has said that the government is on the same page with the Reserve Bank of India on the GDP growth forecast for the current financial year which is 6.5 per cent. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das announced at the end of the monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting on Thursday that the GDP growth forecast for 2023-24 has been pegged at 6.5 per cent, a tad higher than the April forecast of 6.4 per cent.
Nageswaran mentioned ‘Both the ministry of finance and the RBI are on the same page with the growth forecast for the current fiscal which is 6.5 per cent with risks evenly balanced. The domestic economic growth momentum is strong enough to overcome external risk factors.’ He stated ‘We also benefit from lower oil prices and overall domestic macroeconomic stability.’
Further, he said that during the last financial year, real GDP growth was 7.2 per cent, which was lower than the 9.1 per cent registered in the previous fiscal. However, he said ‘I feel that the growth for the last fiscal will be much higher than 7.2 per cent. The CEA to the government said that India was the fastest growing among major economies with all high-frequency parameters for April signalling a good start during the first quarter of the current fiscal.
Besides, he stated with exports of goods and services as a percentage of GDP pegged at 23.5 per cent during the last financial year, the highest since 2015, private consumption and gross capital formation had increased in the last financial year after the pandemic. Private consumption has been mainly driven by urban consumption, contributed largely by the release of pent-up demand.
