Garg emphasised three areas with significant growth opportunities, namely physical infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and the services industry. While there is still a need for investment in physical infrastructure such as railroads, airlines, shipping, and water communication to connect the country, the bigger opportunity lies in investing in digital infrastructure, such as data centers and telecom. India has become a global center for designing programs, including the design of chips, which is a significant export. Furthermore, there are enormous opportunities to capture the global services market in accounting. With India’s strong presence in digital and services, there is a high potential for growth in these areas.
Garg also highlighted the importance of considering growth in the context of long-term and short-term or medium-term growth. Shri Garg encouraged India to learn from Japan’s growth, where their per capita income grew massively, and their population started to plateau and decline over the years.
Dharamakirti Joshi, Chief Economist of CRISIL, provided insights into the global economy. According to him, the high level of indebtedness and uncontrolled inflation are expected to result in a slowdown of the global economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts a growth rate of 2.8%, which is lower than before, and the composition of growth is changing. Advanced countries such as the US and Europe are expected to slow down sharply compared to other parts of the world, such as China. India is also likely to experience a slowdown in GDP growth from 7% to 6% in 2022-2023. This is due to the net negative impact of the slowdown in the US and Europe, which offsets the increase from Chinese growth. While India’s exports to China only constitute 3.3% of total exports, exports to Europe and the US are expected to slow down by 34%.
Dharamakirti Joshi also stated that investments will continue to support the economy, but the animal spirits-driven investment will be broad-based. In the medium term, growth is expected to pick up to 6.8% due to investment and infrastructure creation.
Prasenjit K Basu, Chief Economist at ICICI Securities Limited, while presenting informed that the US is currently encountering a severe inflation issue due to an unprecedented increase in monetary growth over the last 23 months. The average growth rate of 18.6% is much higher than the maximum rate of 10.4% seen in the previous 60 years. Despite a 5% rate increase over the past year, inflation continues to rise, with Core PCE (Personal Consumption Expenditure) inflation at 4.7% year on year. The US has been in a recession since July of last year, as indicated by the consistently inverted yield curve and ISM manufacturing new orders falling below 50, which is a leading indicator of a recession. Additionally, exports from Asia to the US have been declining for the past few months. The IMF has predicted that the US economy will grow just under 1% this year, with negative growth expected for the remainder of the year after an expected growth of 2-2.5% in the first quarter. Meanwhile, China experienced significant growth over the past 25 years, while India is following closely.
Sakshi Gupta, Principal Economist at HDFC’s Treasury Group, highlighted the importance of discussing India’s growth prospects amid the global economic situation. She stated that India’s projected growth rate of 6-7% for FY 2024 would position it as the best among other emerging market countries. This is due to the government’s continued focus on infrastructure spending, with a substantial budget allocation of 10 lakh crores for FY24. However, Gupta cautioned that the global economy is expected to slow down in 2023, with the US experiencing a growth rate of approximately 1%, and the Eurozone and UK facing contraction. She attributed this to central banks tightening monetary policies over the last year, which could pose challenges for growth and businesses. Gupta urged business leaders and policymakers to recognise these challenges and plan accordingly.Arun Dalmia, Co-Chair of the Economic Affairs Committee, believes MSMEs are crucial to India’s growth, representing 75% of the PHD chamber’s 1.5 lakh members, providing employment opportunities, and contributing to rural industrialization. He stated that as India’s GDP approaches $5 trillion, experts project the MSME sector to be worth Rs 1 trillion by 2028, with 63.4 million MSMEs contributing significantly. The government has introduced measures such as credit and collateral guarantees, Zero Deficit and Zero Effect schemes, and timely payments to support MSMEs. With the government’s support, MSMEs will play a pivotal role in accelerating India’s progress toward this milestone.
S P Sharma, Chief Economist | DSG, PHDCCI moderated the seminar and expressed satisfaction with the latest IMF data showing India as the fastest-growing economy among developed and developing nations. While the government and forecasting organisations anticipate a growth rate of around 6.8 to 7%, Sharma believes India will achieve a 7% growth rate, primarily supported by the government, with increasing private consumption and investments.
Vikram Singh Mehta, Co – Chair, Economic Affairs Committee, gave the concluding remarks and said that India’s growth continues to be resilient despite some signs of moderation in growth. India’s economy will grow by 6.5% in FY 2024, which would be driven by Private consumption and Private Investment. .
During the event, a research report was released which had been prepared by the BS Research Bureau. The report discussed the latest data from the IMF which revealed that 94 economies across the world are expected to fall below their 2019 GDP levels in terms of growth rate.
