Growth to be in range of 7-8.5% given global uncertainties: CEA Nageswaran

Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran on Wednesday said India’s growth is expected to be in the range of 7-8.5 per cent given the global uncertainties.

The International Monetary Fund recently lowered its growth forecast to 8.2 per cent which is higher than 7.2 per cent by the Reserve Bank of India.

“The range of outcomes is fairly wide. Wider than it could ever be and that makes decision making all the more hazardous. Lots of luck is needed to get it right,” he said at an event here.

As per the Economic Survey, India’s economy is expected to grow by 8-8.5 per cent in the fiscal beginning April 1.

The CEA said he had a conversation this afternoon with Fitch Ratings which has projected a growth rate of 8.5 per cent for India.

Although they have a negative outlook on India with BBB minus rating, they do have a forecast of 8.5 per cent real GDP growth for 2022-23, he added.

“So, the reality may in fact somewhere between this range of 7-8.5 per cent. We will take that in the current circumstances because the uncertainty as to how long this current conflict in Europe with last and the impact it would have not only on the price of hydrocarbon fuel, but also on fertiliser prices, food prices, etc is quite difficult to guess at this point,” he said.

There are spillover effects likely to come from the monetary policy tightening by central banks in the advanced countries as well, he added.

RBI on Wednesday after an unscheduled MPC meeting hiked the benchmark lending rate by 40 basis points (bps) to 4.40 per cent to contain inflation that has remained stubbornly above the target of 6 per cent for the last three months.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) headed by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das also raised the amount of deposits banks are required to maintain a cash reserve by 50 bps to 4.5 per cent to suck out Rs 87,000 crore of liquidity from the banking system.

This is the first-rate hike since August 2018 and the first instance of the MPC making an unscheduled increase in the repo rate.

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