India’s GDP set to grow 8pc with GST

NEW DELHI: India’s economic expansion is tied to the global economy, but it could grow faster than eight per cent as the nation prepares to implement a national sales tax from July, says Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

The goods and services tax (GST) would eliminate multiplicity of taxes and make India a single common market, said Jaitley, addressing G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington on Friday night.

The GST will replace an archaic web of levies and improve ease of doing business in a country with more than one billion consumers.

Proposed over a decade ago and then refined several times to win bipartisan support under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the tax is scheduled to be rolled out on July 1.

India’s economy may expand 7.2 per cent this year and 7.7 per cent next year, according to the updated forecasts from the April 2017 World Economic Outlook by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

India’s medium-term growth was poised to rise above eight per cent, said Jaitley, citing the IMF’s economic projections. Bloomberg