Washington: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday projected India’s economy to bounce back by 11.5 per cent in the next financial year (2021-22), making it the fastest-growing major economy, and attributed it to the effect of easing of lockdown measures last year.
Speaking during a virtual press conference, IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath said that India has somewhat a faster pace of recovery, but cumulatively by the end of 2022, it is nine per cent below its pre-pandemic projected level.
“We are seeing India come back to its 2019 levels and 2021, but it’s still below. Why do we have these upgrades (in IMF’s growth projections for India)….because the activity and mobility particularly came back much faster than expected in India. We have not seen another wave,” Gopinath said.
“In fact, we are seeing a very strong decline in cases, which is again a bit different from other parts of the world. So, these factors, including what we’re seeing in terms of high frequency indicators, point to have somewhat faster pace of recovery. But again, there is still some distance to go,” Gopinath added.
The International Monetary Fund’s growth projections for India in its latest World Economic Outlook Update reflected a strong rebound in the economy, which is estimated to have contracted by eight per cent in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Earlier in 2020, the IMF had estimated a contraction of 8 per cent in India’s economy. The only major economy which registered a positive growth rate of 2.3 per cent in 2020 was China.
With the latest projections, India regains the tag of the fastest developing economies of the world.