Economic slump is cyclical: Goyal

NEWDELHI: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday said that the recent economic slowdown is a cyclic structural adjustment, and it is the right time to invest in India before growth bounces back.

As India is no longer the fastest-growing major economy in the world, Goyal admitted that the country’s economic growth has slowed down in past two quarters (January-march and April-june) to a six-year low.

“India, being an economy with huge opportunities, could do well without this kind of a slowdown... Our economy is like any other economy in the world... challenges have grown ( i n recent times),” Goyal said during a panel discussion at India Energy Forum by CERAWEEK in New Delhi.

He further said, “We had a pretty good run for almost four to five years before the last two quarters. It (the slowdown) is rightsizing of certain sectors or opportunities in different areas.” “I see the slowdown, but I don’t get unduly perturbed by it... It is an opportunity for all of us to reassess capacities, productivity and costs of production.” Asserting that this is the right to time invest in the country, Goyal urged the investors direct funds in India, before the economy picks up again.

He was of the view that when times are good, people tend to lose the sixth sense and don’t care if... the productivity goes down little bit, leading to a slowdown or structural adjustment every few years.

On the government’s efforts to boost economic growth, he said in the past five years India collectively saw investments which were worth two-and-a-half times of the previous five years.

Further, he informed that Indian Railways would focus on a $700 billion programme of investments in the next 12 years to become an engine of growth as well as bring down logistics cost which would impact all industries in the country.

Similarly, on the infrastructure side, he said the overall vision of the next five year was an investment of $1.4 trillion, which will certainly drive growth and bring back the mojo to industry.

He said, “If energy becomes the viable proposition, then the chemical and petrochemical sector, together can truly drive back growth into the economy. My own sense is that energy sector is at the cusp of a revolution in the country”.