IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said India's economy will be among fastest growing in 2019
A healthy 7.5 per cent growth is what the International Monetary Fund had predicted for India for this year, its chief economist Gita Gopinath told NDTV today. The figure, she said, puts India in the bracket of "one of the fastest-growing, large economies of the world".
"The Indian economy is quite healthy. We revised it up slightly and that was because of lower commodity prices and the effect that that would have on monetary policy," Ms Gopinath told NDTV during an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum at Davos.
Today, the IMF revised the global growth rate downward to 3.5 per cent from last year's 3.7 per cent, citing a faster-than-expected slowdown in several advanced economies of the world. It also predicted a temporary slowdown in some of the developed economies across the world.
India, however, appears fairly insulated from the global risks. IMF data last year indicated that India would become the world's fastest-growing economy in 2018-19 and 2019-20. In its January World Economy Outlook update, the IMF said the growth rate would be 7.5 per cent in 2019 and 7.7 per cent in 2020.
The World Development Indicators database indicated that Indian economy's share in the world has increased from 2.6 per cent in 2014 to 3.2 per cent in 2017, Union minister Pon Radhakrishnan had told Rajya Sabha last year.
But there are areas that need improvement - among them the implementation of the government's flagship Goods and Services Tax and the agricultural sector. Ms Gopinath said instead of loan waivers or subsidies for farmers, the government could consider cash support.
Mysore-born Ms Gopinath had quit the Harvard economics faculty to join the International Monetary Fund earlier this month. She is the first woman to occupy the post of the chief economist in the global organisation.