India to focus on strong economic growth
IHS Markit predicts Piyush Goyal to be next finance minister of India
Abu Dhabi: India’s economic policy will continue to focus on maintaining strong economic growth and creating jobs for the country’s large and growing population, a report from IHS Markit said predicting victory for Narendra Modi led government in New Delhi.
The government will also focus on the expansion of already announced policies including infrastructure investment, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rationalisation and financial sector regulations, according to the report authored by Hanna Luchnikava Schorsch and Deepa Kumar.
HIS Markit, however is relatively bearish about India’s medium term growth outlook due to slow implementation of economic reforms. Following average growth of 7.5 per cent during the Modi government’s first tenure, the global consultancy forecast the economy to grow by 7 per cent in fiscal year 2019, 6.9 per cent in fiscal year 2020 and by an average of 6.8 per cent in fiscal year 2021-24.
India will also see more foreign direct investment in sectors like pharmaceuticals, construction, defence manufacturing and electronics to boost Make in India programme of Modi government.
Current railway minister Piyush Goyal is likely to replace Arun Jaitley as the next finance minister with Nirmala Sitharaman heading the external affairs ministry in place of Sushma Swaraj, the report says. Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari will be the new ministers for Home Affairs and Defence.