‘IMF staff consistently inaccurate on India’s growth forecasts’
India’s representative on Fund’s board rebuffs IMF spokseperson; alleges ‘huge error margins’ in IMF staff ’s India growth estimates Vs. official data
India’s former Chief Economic Advisor, now serving as its executive director on the board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), hit out at the Fund’s staff on Saturday for putting out ‘consistently inaccurate’ growth estimates for the country in recent years, two days after the IMF distanced itself from his assertions that India can grow at 8% till 2047.
In a statement on X, Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, India’s representative on the IMF board since November 2022, said his ‘predictions’ about India’s growth had been accurate in contrast to IMF staff estimates. He was responding to a post about a report on the IMF spokesperson’s comments made at a briefing on Thursday.
Asked for the IMF’s take on Mr. Subramanian projecting a growth of 8% for India, which was different from the Fund’s projections, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack sought to explain the different roles at IMF and stressed that as of January, it expected the country’s medium term growth to be about 6.5%, which may be revised in the coming weeks.
“First, I will just explain the different roles at IMF. We do have an executive board that is made up of executive directors who are representatives of countries… And that is distinct, of course, from the work of the IMF staff. So, the views conveyed in the particular article by Mr. Subramanian were in his role as India’s representative at the IMF,” Ms. Kozack had pointed out.
“Our growth projections as of January were for medium term growth of 6.5%,” she had said.
In a terse response, the former CEA said IMF staff ’s estimate of India’s growth rate has been “consistently INACCURATE” as all staff estimates have been of less than 7%, while India’s growth has been more than 7% during his tenure. “In contrast, I’ve made accurate predictions. See my Sep21 prediction Expect more than 7% growth for India this decade: Actual growth FY2122=9.7%; FY2223=7.0%; FY2324 (estimate)=7.6%. The Data speaks!” he said.
“In contrast, check IMF staff predictions. For FY 2324, in Nov22 and Jan23, IMF staff predicted growth=6.1%. In Apr23, they lowered it to 5.9%. In Nov23, they predicted 6.3%. Actual growth, IMO (In My Opinion), will be ~8%. So, IMF staff’s error margins are HUGE: 1.9% in Nov22 & Jan23 estimates, 2.1% in Apr23 estimate, and 1.7% in Nov23 estimates. Similarly, even FY2324 growth estimates of IMF staff <7%. Data clearly shows whose prediction is more accurate!” Mr. Subramanian posted.