Current economic woes owing to domestic factors: Raghuram Rajan

10 Dec 2013 Evaluate

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan has attributed the current economic woes to stimulus provided by the Government to tide over the global crisis of 2008, which eventually led to an overheated economy, high inflation and uncomfortable fiscal and current account deficits. Rajan added that Indian economy has slowed to below 5 percent from an average of 8 percent between 2002-2012, mainly on account of domestic factors like institutional weakness, withdrawal of stimulus and partially due to global factors.

By adding further, the RBI governor said that in order to combat the impact of global financial meltdown of 2008, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee gave three stimulus packages to the industry. As a result, the current account deficit (CAD), which is the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange, rose to a record high of 4.8 percent of GDP in FY13, from 2.8 percent in FY11. Meanwhile, the governor has expressed optimism that country’s CAD is likely to come down at around 3 percent of GDP for the current fiscal on the back of measures taken by the Indian authorities. Owing to the measures taken by the government and the RBI to increase inflow and restrict gold imports, the CAD moderated to 3.1 percent of the GDP in first half of current fiscal as compared to 4.5 percent of GDP in the same period of previous fiscal.

Further, Rajan hoped that on a more long-term basis, inflation indexed bonds would help reduce gold demand, a major factor for widening CAD. On fiscal deficit front, Raghuram Rajan expressed optimism that country’s fiscal deficit is likely to meet the budget target of 4.8 percent of GDP in current fiscal, but could result in a contraction in spending, depending on the extent of revenue shortfall. The fiscal deficit of the country stood at 4.9 percent of GDP in the previous financial year. The governor has also expressed the need to improve the financial system by clarifying monetary policy framework, strengthening the banking structure through new entry or bank expansion and broadening financial markets, among others.

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