‘NDA has achieved high growth with low inflation’
NEW DELHI: Noting that his government had achieved the unprecedented dual objective of sustained high growth combined with low inflation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said innovation and technology would provide the backbone of “resurgence” for a “new India”. Addressing a Global Business Summit, Modi said that unlike earlier governments in the post-liberalisation era, the outgoing National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government had achieved both sustained high growth of over 7 per cent and low single-digit inflation. “The previous government achieved an average annual growth rate of 6.5 per cent with inflation in double digits,” he said. “However, between 2014 and 2019, the average annual growth rate has been 7.4 per cent, while the average inflation rate has been 4.5 per cent. Post the liberalisation in 1991, this has been the highest rate of average growth combined with the lowest average rate of inflation.” He said the current transformation underway in the economy was the result of sound macroeconomic fundamentals which is reflected, for instance, in the “increasing bouquet of financing resources”. “There is no more the sole dependence on bank credit for raising capital. While between 2012 and 2014, the average finance raised through equity was Rs 14,000 crore per annum, in the last four years this average has gone up to Rs 43,000 crore,” he said.
“Alternative Investment Funds raised less than an average of Rs 4,000 crore between 2011-14, but under our government AIF, during 2014-18, this figure has gone up to Rs 81,000 crore, recording a jump of 20 times,” Modi added. Declaring that “New India” would be an active contributor to the Industrial Revolution 4.0, the Prime Minister said that “innovation and technology will form the backbone of this resurgence”. Citing indicators of the resurgence, Modi said that the number of patents granted had gone up over three-fold, from 4,000 in 2013 to 13,000 in 2017-18. “Trademarks registered have gone up from 68,000 in 2013-14 to 2.5 lakh in 2016-17, a four-fold increase,” he added.