‘Growth forecast of 8% for India not ours’

The recent remarks of Krishnamurthy Subramanian, executive director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), about India’s growth figures does not represent the views of the IMF and were in his role as India’s representative at the global body, the IMF has said.

“The views conveyed ...by Mr. Subramanian were in his role as India’s representative at the IMF,” Julie Kozack, IMF spokesperson, said on Thursday.

She was responding to a question on recent remarks by Subramanian, in which he projected a growth rate of 8% for India, which is different from the last growth rate projections by the IMF.

Subramanian, at an event in New Delhi on March 28, had said Indian economy could grow at 8% till 2047, if the country redoubles the good policies that it has implemented over the last 10 years and accelerate reforms.

“So, the basic idea is that with the kind of growth that India has registered in the last 10 years, if we can redouble the good policies that we have implemented over the last 10 years and accelerate the reforms, then India can grow at 8% from here on till 2047,” he had said. Subramanian had emphasised that India needs to strengthen its domestic economy as about 58% of the country’s GDP comes from domestic consumption.

The IMF spokesperson clarified, “We do have an Executive Board. That Executive Board is made up of executive directors who are representatives of countries or groups of countries, and they make up the Executive Board of the IMF. And that’s distinct, of course, from the work of the IMF staff.”

The International Monetary Fund would be updating its World Economic Outlook in the next couple of weeks.

“But our growth projections as of January were for medium term growth of 6.5%, and that was a slight upward revision relative to October. Again, we will be presenting the latest forecast in just a couple of weeks,” Kozack said.