The Indian government expects the economy to grow by 6.5 per cent this fiscal and all efforts are focused on bringing India to a higher growth trajectory, according to NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar, who recently said announcements over the last two months and the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) fifth consecutive rate cut are indications of that target.
“We do want to have this growth rate which will probably end about 6.5% this year which is lower than what we expect, to go up to 8 per cent sooner rather than later,” said Kumar, at the India Economic Summit organised by the World Economic Forum and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi last week.
The RBI last week cut rates by 25 basis points, bringing the repo rate to 5.15 per cent, the lowest since March 2010. The RBI also cut its gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast to 6.1 per cent from 6.9 per cent. The RBI has cut repo rates by 135 basis points, cutting rates in every policy meetings this year. One basis point is one hundredth of one per cent.
Kumar said there would be a lot more announcements on ease of doing business and that the government is aware of and working on issues faced by the industry, particularly around logistics and high energy costs, according to Indian media reports.Two more labour codes would come out in the next parliament session, he said.
