New Delhi: India has to be prepared to take advantage of the conducive global situations to grow at a faster pace to achieve the goal of becoming a developed nation by 2047, Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran said Friday.
Nageswaran attributed the slowdown in India’s economic growth to global factors.
According to the Economic Survey, India needs to grow at 8 per cent for up to two decades to become a developed nation by 2047.
Addressing a press conference after tabling of the Economic Survey 2024-25, he said the current relative slowdown in the Indian economy should be seen in context and ‘India still remains the fastest growing large economy in the world’.
According to the NSO estimates, India’s economic growth is expected to slip to 6.4 per cent in 2024-25. The Survey has projected a growth of 6.3 to 6.8 per cent for 2025-26.
Whenever the global exports growth picks up, in those years, it contributes another 0.5 to 1 per cent additional growth, which will take it (India’s economic growth) to 7.5-8 per cent, and the agriculture sector itself can contribute one per cent of additional GDP growth, he said.
Nageswaran was responding to a question about whether it is feasible for India to become a developed nation by 2047, as the country’s economy is likely to expand by 6.3-6.8 per cent in the coming fiscal, much lower than what is needed to become a developed country.
According to him, Viksit Bharat’s growth rate with respect to the nominal GDP growth rate in dollar terms required is around 10 per cent.
“And I think, it (10 per cent growth) is not something that will be achieved on an average year after year…there will years when we will achieve more than that, there will be years, when we will achieve lower than that, depending on the global scenarios,” the CEA said.
Nageswaran noted that it is not something that is a mechanical number that is applied exactly year after year as the global conditions will influence it in some years positively and negatively in some.
“We have to be prepared to take advantage of it in those conductive years while maintaining a certain minimum level of growth in those years when conditions are not favourable,” he said.
The IMF projects India to be a USD 5 trillion economy by FY28 and USD 6.3 trillion by FY30, with an annual nominal growth rate of 10.2 per cent in USD terms.
Responding to a question on steps taken by the RBI to deal with the sliding Indian rupee, Nageswaran said the reasoned action taken by the Indian central bank with respect to the rupee or domestic liquidity are steps in the right direction.
Asked why India’s net foreign direct investment slowing down, the CEA said, “We are no longer competing only with emerging market nations, we are now also competing with industrialised nations”.
He also noted that one of the biggest magnets of FDI is actually prospects of profitable returns, which is what India has been providing to portfolio investors and direct investors.
“The government has been responding to the emerging situations, and therefore, FDI numbers should be looked at what is happening elsewhere in the world as well in terms of overall FDI inflows,” he added.
Nageswaran also said that he is not expecting any upside risk to crude oil prices.
PTI
