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India's growth story is remarkably stable and resilient: WB

By Swati Deshpande,

Added 19 March 2018

Sustained acceleration to 8% plus growth will require durable momentum in investments, exports and bank credit

The Indian economy is set to revert to its trend growth rate of 7.5 percent in the coming years as it bottoms out from the impact of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and demonetization, a new World Bank report says.

The India Development Update, released today, is a biannual flagship publication of the World Bank which takes stock of the Indian economy. The current issue (March 2018), titled "India's Growth Story" describes the state of the Indian economy, shares India's growth experience and trajectory over the past several decades and provides a long-term perspective on India's growth outlook. Over the last 50 years, the Update notes that India's average growth has accelerated slowly but steadily across sectors - agriculture, industry and services - and become more stable. This is reflected in increasing labor productivity and total factor productivity. After growing far more rapidly before the global financial crisis, the economy has grown at an average rate of about 7 percent since 2008-09. 

The Update centers around an assessment of what it will take for India to return to growth rates of 8 percent and higher on a sustained basis. To sustain its growth path, India will need to keep a close eye on several factors to make the country more resilient to shocks: the changing landscape of open trade, reforms in the banking sector, strengthening financial institutions, and regulatory supervision of the financial sector. Deepening its structural reforms in the areas of health, education and service delivery will be critical for development of human capital required to sustain growth.

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