India bright spot but needs to push exports, says IMF
New Delhi, January 6
Terming India as a “relative bright spot” in the global economy in an endorsement of the government’s economic policies, a senior IMF official said to push the growth rate higher, India will have to leverage its existing strength in exports of services and job-intensive manufacturing products.
The Indian economy is making significant progress on the structural reforms agenda and its macroeconomic policies are responding to global headwinds. Besides, the country’s monetary policy is addressing high inflation and the fiscal policy measures are sound, said IMF’s Deputy Managing Director Antoinette Sayeh at an event here on Friday.
“India needs to leverage its existing strength in services exports and extend it to job-rich manufacturing exports by deepening its global value chain participation and complementary structural reforms that can boost productivity, formal employment, and exports,” said Sayeh.
“Macroeconomic policies are responding to the significant headwinds, with fiscal policy measures supporting vulnerable groups and monetary policy addressing persistently high inflation,” she added.
At the same time, the IMF official spoke against India’s frequent export curbs on commodities, especially food. “We very much want to encourage India and other countries that are food exporters to not put in place restrictions because it, of course, hurts food importers and it also potentially hurts India. So, we certainly don’t want countries to be enforcing additional restrictions where it’s hard to evaluate,” she said.
