Indian economy’s growth likely to remain flat in Q1 FY14: Finance Minister

23 Aug 2013 Evaluate

Admitting that Indian economy’s growth is under pressure, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that economic growth is likely to remain flat in the first quarter of the current fiscal on account of global slowdown as well as some domestic factors. However, Chidambaram added that the economy’s growth is likely to pick up in the remaining three quarters of FY14 on back of various initiatives taken by the government like increase in sown area by about 9.1 percent, acceleration in plan expenditure and implementation of various infrastructure projects cleared by the cabinet committee on investment (CCI) in last few months . The country's economic growth has slowed down to decade low of 5 percent in the last fiscal year.

In order to improve the country’s deteriorating macro-indicators, Chidambaram said that during the last 12 months the government has taken a number of measures to contain inflation and revive investment and growth. Referring to the rupee depreciation, Finance Minister said that the domestic currency is undervalued and has overshot appropriate levels, but there is no need to take panic and stability will return to currency markets as government continues to promote investment and growth. Rupee value fell by 5.5 percent in the last five days and depreciated to a record low of over 65 per dollar.

Rupee is depreciating on account of high current account deficit (CAD), which widened to a record high of 4.8 percent in the FY13. High gold imports and crude oil prices are the main factors behind the broadening CAD of the country.  

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