PM says economy has resilience to reverse slowdown

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday (December 20) said the Indian economy has the resilience to reverse the current slowdown and return to high growth trajectory. He also exhorted corporates to make bold investment decisions to help push up GDP growth.

Speaking at the centenary celebration of ASSOCHAM, he said a massive ₹ 100 lakh crore will be spent in the coming years on building infrastructure and another ₹ 25 lakh crore on rural economy and this, in turn, will help nearly double the size of the Indian economy to USD 5 trillion by 2024.

“I am fully aware of the discussions happening around (current economic slowdown). I don’t challenge comments made on it. I try to take away positives from such discourse,” he said.

Also read: India economy headed to ICU, says Arvind Subramanian

Modi highlighted his government’s decisions such as decriminalisation of corporate offences and promised them that “no inappropriate action will be taken on genuine corporate decisions”.

“These kinds of ups and downs (in economic growth) have been seen in the past but the country has the potential to come out of these circumstances,” he said exuding confidence of returning to a high growth trajectory.

The Prime Minister highlighted that India climbed from 142nd among 190 nations on the World Bank’s Ease of doing business ranking to 63rd place in three years and noted that India is among the top 10 nations which have in the last three years made continuous improvement.

Also read: Most states oppose hike in GST despite slowdown, low revenues

“This hasn’t come without having to face anger and allegations from people,” he said. “We have been told that we are corporate agents. But we are agents of 130 crore Indians.”
He said many provisions of Companies Act have been decriminalised and more amendments will follow.

Also, companies facing failures have been given exit routes in the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC), he said.

Also read: Retail inflation shoots to 3-year high of 5.54% in November

He, however, said the interest of the labour force should also be taken care of. India received highest foreign direct investment during the last five years and its global competitiveness has improved, he said adding the country has the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world.