India’s economic growth is expected to pick up in the current fiscal and will be “much better” in 2015-16, the Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, today said.
“The last two years witnessed an economic slowdown. This year may be somewhat better, and next year will be much better,” he said here.
Indian economy was growing at over 9 per cent for three years before it was impacted by the global financial crisis of 2008. The growth rate fell to sub-5 per cent in the last two consecutive fiscals — 2012-13 and 2013-14.
In the first half of the current fiscal, the growth rate improved to 5.5 per cent, up from 4.9 per cent recorded in 2013-14 fiscal.
The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman, said India is among the few countries for which IMF has upgraded its growth outlook. In October, it had projected India’s GDP expansion at 5.6 per cent in 2014-15.
The mid-year economic review of the government has projected that the economy has the potential to grow at a much faster pace, she added.