India: Government attempts to revive economy

By APD Writer Rishika Chauhan

NEW DELHI, September 24 (APD) -- The government is attempting to revive the slowing down economy by boosting investment and encouraging manufacturing in India.

According to a recent report published in Hindustan Times, “different ministries are working together to chalk out measures to rev up the ailing economy, once hailed as the only bright spot in the world.”

Recently, the finance minister Arun Jaitley informed that he had conducted a series of discussions on ways to revive the economy, with his ministerial colleagues, secretaries and other experts within the government.

India’s economic growth stood at 5.7% in the April-June quarter— it’s lowest in the last three years.

Since then many experts have blamed government’s policy of banning 500 and 1,000-rupee notes for the slump.

According to some experts, the government would attempt to boost the economy by giving the businessmen 180 days to return their working capital borrowings from financial institutions.

Additionally it would re-work on the public-private partnership model, raise its capital expenditure and issue infrastructure bonds to raise money for spending.

To attract fresh investments, the government will also try to increase the ease of doing business throughout the country.

Speaking to the media, the former chief statistician of India, Pronab Sen, explained the problem with the economy, “The worry is that investments are happening but its proportion to the GDP is important. GDP is growing at 5.7% while investments are at 1.6%.”

He further said, “This means investments are not acting as a demand-enhancer. If we continue this for a long time then it will impact demand. So the government has to work on both the demand side as well as the supply side.”

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)