India On Course, Projected To Grow At 7 Per Cent In 2022-23: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the Indian economy will stay on course and is likely to grow at 7 per cent in 2022-23.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the Indian economy will stay on course and is likely to grow at 7 per cent in 2022-23. Sitharaman also observed that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have estimated India to be the fastest-growing major economy in 2023.

Speaking at the Plenary Meeting of the International Monetary and Financial Committee at the IMF Headquarters, Sitharaman highlighted that a conducive domestic policy environment, along with the government's focus on structural reforms, has kept domestic economic activity in India robust. The meeting was organised to discuss the priorities identified in the managing director's global policy agenda. 

Nirmala Sitharaman said that both the IMF and World Bank project India to be the fastest-growing major economy in 2023. The Indian economy will stay on course and is projected to grow at 7 per cent in 2022-23, as per the Economic Survey 2022-23. 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday lowered its economic growth forecast for India by 20 basis points to 5.9 per cent for the financial year 2023-24. The projection is significantly lower than the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) projection of 6.5 per cent. The World Bank forecast said India will grow at 6.3 per cent, while the Asian Development Bank is projecting 6.4 per cent GDP growth for FY24.

The Finance Ministry in a tweet thread said that in her intervention, Nirmala Sitharaman underlined the learning from the pandemic that digitalisation, especially Digital Public Infrastructure, is a positive catalyst for the global economy and how India's DPI has revolutionised access and created a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. 

The Finance Minister made reference to the global sovereign debt roundtable and said that it has shown other vulnerable countries how to go forward constructively with multi-stakeholder cooperation. India was happy to be a member of the team that came up with solutions for Sri Lanka and Surinam.

Sitharaman reaffirmed her commitment to working with stakeholders to find answers to urgent global problems that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and underprivileged people.

She also stressed the importance of engaging in constructive discourse to combat the problem of global fragmentation and asked all G20 countries to continue supporting multilateral efforts.