The Budget session of Parliament kicks off with the tabling of the Economic Survey 2023. The recovery is complete that's the key message from the 371 page Economic Survey 2023 which was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday (January 31).

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The first economic survey since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, it highlighted that prudent assumptions in last year's Union Budget provided a buffer to the government during global uncertainties.

The survey has highlighted that India has moved on from its encounter with the pandemic and projected real GDP growth of 7 percent this fiscal. It has also forecast 6.5 percent real GDP growth and an 11 percent nominal GDP growth in FY24.

Talking about growth forecast of 6.5 percent real GDP growth Suman Bery, vice chairperson at NITI Aayog said homework has been done and the growth target is relevant.

He said, "What Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) Anantha Nageswaran said that looking at the various growth drivers, and he has made this point explicitly, I believe in his press conference, that even abstracting from slowing world trade growth, he believed that the growth rates are feasible. So my sense would be that the homework has been done."

He added that for 2023 it is not necessarily in India's interest for there to be a return to a very buoyant economy. He said, "Because that might make the task of disinflation, particularly in the US that much harder, which means a higher final or terminal Fed funds rate, which would put pressure on the RBI. So that those are the mechanisms by which what happens globally, has an impact on what happens in India.”

According to the survey the government capex has increased from a long average of 1.7 percent of GDP in the 2009 to 2020 period to 2.5 percent of GDP.

Berry said, "As the economic survey points out, there have been improvements both in in the hardware highways, particularly, waterways, railways, as it points out, we are already doing pretty well, airports. So, that's the dividend on the government side."

He added, "Capital expenditure at the moment has been important, but we must keep it in perspective, it's not even as much as a quarter of total capital expenditure, the rest of which is households and private corporates. We are expecting that private corporate expenditure be mobilized what's called crowding in by what government does."

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He mentioned that the major challenge for India, and for the emerging world, is our green transition. He said, "Our green transition is going to require higher investment rates, it is going to require investment, whether those are higher investment rates really depends on the availability of financing. The financing, ideally, should come from abroad."

For full interview, watch accompanying video

First Published:Jan 31, 2023 7:25 PM IST