New Delhi: On the wake of what looks like the economic slowdown, worst in last 7 years, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Thursday said India’s economic growth is “much weaker than expected” due to “corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty and lingering weakness in some non-bank financial companies (NBFCs)”.
While addressing the media, IMF spokesperson Gerry Rice, said, “There was a question on India and its growth rate… and I want to take it… we will have a fresh set of numbers coming up, but the recent economic growth in India is much weaker than expected.”
He added that it was “mainly due to corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty and lingering weakness in some non-bank financial companies and risks to the outlook are tilted to the downside, as we like to say.”
The economic growth slowed to a seven-year low to 5 per cent in April to June quarter from 8 per cent a year ago, as per the government data.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its projection for India’s economic growth by 0.3 percentage points to 7 per cent for the fiscal year 2019-20 owing to the “weaker-than-expected outlook” for the domestic demand.
The slowdown was largely due to a sharp dip in the manufacturing sector and agriculture output, said the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in a statement.
Former prime minister Manmohan Singh Thursday criticised the Centre’s aim to make India a $5-trillion economy by 2024, calling it a “pipe dream”. Addressing a meeting of top Congress leaders, he said, “The dangerous thing about the present situation is that the government is complacent enough not to realise that we are in the midst of a protracted economic slowdown.”
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