Bullish about recovery prospects, Rashesh Shah, Chairman and CEO, Edelweiss Group, on Monday said calender year 2021 will be a good year for the country.
“There has been a rebound in the last couple of months and I believe that in 2021 Indian economy will be back on track. The next couple of quarters will be about coming back to normalcy,” he told reporters.
Shah said apart from base effect, there is also a lot of pent-up demand and measures taken for strengthening of economy, which will help in recovery.
“We will be ready to take off next year,” he stressed.
His comments come at a time when experts have forecast a sharp contraction in India’s GDP growth this fiscal. While the Reserve Bank of India has forecast the economy will contract by 9.5 per cent in 2020-21, the IMF has projected a decline of 10.3 per cent before rebounding by 8.8 per cent in 2021.
Shah said the last three months from July to September were very good and have helped build confidence and the challenge now is to work on growth.
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“Hopefully, the economy has made a U-turn and the crisis days are behind. We need to grab the growth challenge and engage on that,” he said.
Investment opportunities
Responding to a question, he said that a lot of global investors believe in the India story and especially in credit.
“Everyone is concerned about the next one year but investors who are able to look at opportunities in next four to five years... India is one of the opportunities where they can make adequate returns,” he said.
On his outlook on the banking and financial sector, Shah said banks and NBFCs have focussed on repairing the balancesheet.
“Most banks and NBFCs are not worried about profit and loss and growth parameters but concerned about equity and liquidity. The time till next six months until March 2021 will be for strengthening the balancesheet,” he said.
Shah said that 2021-22 will be a very good year as banks and NBFCs would have raised enough to strengthen their capital ratios. “All this will help the economy come out of the crisis,” he said, adding that growth is already starting to creep back.