Well timed coverage interventions assist India stay quickest rising financial system: Sanjiv Puri, chairman and managing director of ITC

“(The) Q2 GDP numbers are a testomony to how nicely the financial system is doing,” Puri mentioned on the Confederation of Indian Business (CII) World Financial Coverage Discussion board right here. And that may be a results of the spirit of enterprise, resilience of individuals, “enabled by a whole lot of very well timed and purposeful coverage interventions over a number of years”, he mentioned.

Whereas the federal government has dealt with inflation – which has been excessive because of international challenges – nicely, all sectors, significantly export-oriented ones, usually are not doing so nicely, Puri mentioned.

Pushed by uneven and scanty rain, annual retail inflation had hit a 15-month excessive of seven.44% in July with meals worth inflation at 11.5%, its highest in additional than three and a half years.

The federal government took a number of measures to place a lid on meals costs equivalent to prohibiting export of wheat, limiting export of sugar, onion and rice, importing pulses, disposing off wheat, rice, and greens equivalent to onions from its personal shares, bringing meals inflation down to six.61% in October.

The Indian financial system grew 7.6% within the second quarter ended September, beating expectations. This was regardless of the slowdown within the western economies impacting the nation’s export potential.”The western world is just not dealing with nice development. There’s the danger of recessions…and that is what’s impacting our exports,” Puri mentioned.Larger pricing stress because of exterior components and the present local weather emergency is affecting the nation’s financial system, mentioned the chief of cigarette-to-hotels conglomerate ITC. “Now we’re seeing a state of affairs the place commodities are cooling off, however they’re nonetheless above what they had been pre-Covid. Plenty of it’s associated to exterior components and the local weather emergency, which can also be inflicting its personal little bit of inflation,” he mentioned.

But, Puri mentioned, “There is no doubt in my thoughts that India goes to emerge as a worldwide financial powerhouse. It is already the fifth largest financial system, and by the tip of this decade, it ought to be the third.”