Economy on track despite ‘unsupportive’ global factors, says Arun Jaitley

Mumbai, September 22

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that despite “unsupportive” global factors, the government has broadly put the economy on track.

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Jaitley has been holding consultations with his Cabinet colleagues and senior government officials to devise plans to lift the sagging growth.

The GDP expansion hit three-year low of 5.7 per cent in the April-June quarter with India losing the fastest-growing economy tag to China for the second straight quarter.

“Here we were facing somewhat globally unsupportive environments. And yet, I will say with a sense of satisfaction that we have broadly put the economy on track,” Jaitley said at an event organised here by Bloomberg.

“I think in terms of maintaining a steady rate of growth, in terms of systematically moving forward in the reform direction not deviating from the overall path itself, and maintaining a more transparent, a more realistic fiscal prudence better than most periods in event history, we were able to move forward,” he said.

Besides falling GDP growth rate, exports are facing strong headwinds and the industrial expansion is the lowest in five years.

The current account deficit (CAD) — the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange — has risen to 2.4 per cent of GDP in April-June. PTI