The Indian economy is expected to clock 8.9 per cent GDP growth this fiscal, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday.
Chairing the 7th Annual Meeting of Board of Governors of NDB, a multilateral development bank, through video-conference in New Delhi, Sitharaman said this expected growth will be the highest among all large economies.
This reflects India’s strong resilience and speedy recovery, she said. Sitharaman also expressed confidence that India will continue to achieve a high growth rate in the current and next financial years. The meeting was also attended by Governors/Alternate Governors of Brazil, China, Russia, South Africa and the newly joined members Bangladesh and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Multilateralism, global cooperation
In her statement, Sitharaman underscored the importance of multilateralism and the spirit of global cooperation for economic recovery. She acknowledged that the NDB has successfully established itself as a reliable development partner for emerging market economies.
While acknowledging the NDB’s achievements and progress made over the last six years, Sitharaman highlighted that the bank has demonstrated strong results within its core mandate. She also said NDB will play a significant and meaningful role in the development journey of its member countries in the decades to come.
NDB is a multilateral development bank set up by the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in 2014 with the objective of mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the BRICS as well as other EMDCs of the world. The bank was operationalised in 2015, with its headquarters in Shanghai, China. Last year, NDB has expanded its membership to include four countries namely, Bangladesh, UEA, Egypt and Uruguay. NDB has so far approved 21 projects of India for an amount of $7.1 billion.