Despite global challenges, the Indian economy will continue to grow at a fast pace: CEA Nagswaran

The country’s Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anant Nagswaran said that despite the new challenges in the global environment, India will be able to maintain its growth lead with the right policy measures. Nagswaran, in his address at the University of Cholumbia, said that the government’s vision is to achieve the target of developed India by 2047. But apart from the size of India, the biggest challenge is that for the next 10-20 years, the external environment is not going to be as favorable as it has started in the last 30 years.

He clarified that the country cannot choose its external environment beyond a border, so there will be challenges.

He further said that the ongoing geopolitical stress is adversely affecting global capital flow. In such a situation, India will need to increase investment rates or to extract more price from existing investments. The CEA said that India could not depend on exports to increase development in the same way as it used to come from exports in the early 2000s. In the first decade, 40 percent of GDP growth used to come from exports, but in the second decade this figure may be reduced to 20 percent and even less in the third decade.

Developed India said this about 2047 vision

V Anant Nagswaran said that there is a need to improve quality, investing in research and development, upgrade in logistics and improge the last mile connectivity to increase export competitive capacity. For the developed India 2047 vision, there is a need to integrate Indian manufacturing and business in the global value chain. Also the country will have to make a strong small and medium enterprise (SME) sector.

According to the CEA, India will have to create about 80 lakh job opportunities per year in the next 10 to 12 years to bring the manufacturing sector stake in the country’s GDP.