Jaitley says pick-up in manufacturing can boost overall economic growth
Jaitley says pick-up in manufacturing can boost overall economic growth
Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that the Indian economy has witnessed significant improvement in macro-economic stability despite uncertain global economic situation.
Addressing a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the ministry of finance on ‘State of Economy’, he said the macroeconomic outcome is evident in the economic recovery.
“The economy has witnessed significant improvement in the macroeconomic stability in terms of low levels of inflation, fiscal deficit and Current Account Deficit,” an official statement quoted him as saying at the meeting.
India’s achievement of being one of the fastest growing economies of the world is “creditable considering that the global economic situation continues to be uncertain transmitting negative spill-overs, because of which emerging markets and developing economies have, in general, become more vulnerable and fragile.”
He said the current macroeconomic outcome is far superior to that in early 2013-14 when the situation was worrisome in terms of high current account and fiscal deficits with high inflation, high interest rates and low growth.
A slew of policy measures and structural reforms during the last 19 months have helped reverse the outlook, Mr Jaitley said adding reforms have addressed the critical problems of stimulating and stabilising the economy.
The measures to boost growth included enhanced public investment, kick starting stalled projects, financial inclusion, improving governance through systemic changes like open auction for natural resources of coal and spectrum.
Mr Jaitley said India clocked 7.3 per cent growth rate in 2014-15, higher than 6.9 per cent growth achieved in 2013-14 and 5.1 per cent in 2012-13.
This was an evidence of “India being firmly on the path of economic revival,” he said.
India’s growth rate compares to 3.4 per cent expansion in the global economy and 4.6 per cent in emerging markets and developing economies.
GDP growth was 7.2 per cent in the first half of current fiscal as against 7 per cent in the second half of last year. Growth has improved from 7 per cent in the first quarter of 2015-16 to 7.4 per cent in the second quarter of current fiscal. “The pick-up in the growth of manufacturing sector can boost overall growth both directly and indirectly because of the substantial backward and forward linkages that the sector has,” he said adding the manufacturing growth has improved from 6.1 per cent in H2 2014-15 to 8.2 per cent in H1 2015-16.
