‘India expected to grow at 7.4% in 2018’

New Delhi: India is expected to grow at 7.4% in 2018 and 7.8% in 2019, leaving its nearest rival China behind respectively at 6.6% and 6.4% in the two years, the IMF said on Tuesday.

With growth picking up after falling sharply in the second quarter of 2017 due to “one-off factors”, India, in 2018 and 2019, would re-emerge as one of the fastest growing major economies, it said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in the latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), has projected India to grow at 7.4% in 2018 and 7.8% in 2019. China is expected to grow respectively at 6.6% and 6.4% in the two years.

However, the latest IMF growth rate projection remains unchanged since the last one in October.

India’s growth rate in 2016 was 7.1% as against China’s 6.7%.

Two major economic reforms — demonetisation and goods and services tax (GST) — resulted in a slight lower growth rate of 6.7% in 2017.

China, with 6.9% growth, jumped marginally ahead of India in 2017.

India’s projected growth provided some offset to China’s gradual slowdown, the IMF said.

The latest forecast is unchanged, “with the short-term firming of growth driven by a recovery from the transitory effects of the currency exchange initiative and implementation of the national goods and services tax, and supported by strong private consumption growth,” the WEO said.

According to the IMF, India has made progress on structural reforms in the recent past, including through the implementation of the GST, which will help reduce internal barriers to trade, increase efficiency and improve tax compliance.

‘Key challenge’

“While the medium-term growth outlook for India is strong, an important challenge is to enhance inclusiveness,” the report said.

India’s high public debt and recent failure to achieve the budget’s deficit target, calls for continued fiscal consolidation into the medium term to further strengthen fiscal policy credibility, the report said.

The main priorities for lifting constraints on job creation and ensuring that the demographic dividend is not wasted are to ease labour market rigidities, reduce infrastructure bottlenecks, and improve educational outcomes, the IMF said.

According to the WEO, growth in China and India last year was supported by resurgent net exports and strong private consumption, respectively, while investment growth slowed.