- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Pramod Thomas
The Economic Survey 2019-20 tabled in the Indian Parliament on Friday (January 31) expects that the country would grow 6-6.5% in the next financial year (2020-21).
The survey revealed the fact that growth reduced to 4.8% in H1 of 2019-20 from 6.2% in H2 of 2018-19.
These numbers are critical for the country as the Union Budget 2020 will be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, February 1, 2020.
The survey highlighted the fact the year 2019 was difficult for the global economy as the world output growth estimated to grow at its slowest pace of 2.9% since the global financial crisis of 2009.
It reflected that as a result of the global slowdown, India too fared badly.
The survey said that Indian government has taken important reforms in 2019-20 towards speeding up the insolvency resolution process under Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, easing of credit, particularly for the stressed real estate and NBFC sectors, and announcing the National Infrastructure Pipeline 2019-2025.
The target is to boost investment, consumption and exports.
The Economic Survey revealed that headline inflation rose from 3.3% in H1 of 2019-20 to 7.35% in December 2019-20 on account of hike in food prices.
The survey calls for delivering expeditiously on reforms using its strong mandate received in 2019 elections.
Based on CSO’s first Advance Estimates of India’s GDP growth for 2019-20 at 5%, an uptick in GDP growth is expected in H2 of 2019-20, says the survey.
Land and labour market reforms may further reduce business costs, said the survey.
