- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Nada Choueiri, International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) mission chief for India, has said that consumption demand in the South Asian nation is cooling and its economy has almost caught up with the Covid-19 pandemic-induced slowdown, leaving lesser scope to cover for expansion.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg Television, Choueiri said while data suggest demand is softening, “but more importantly, new data available on the previous years suggests that the pandemic impact on the economy has been short-lived and growth has recovered much more quickly,” diminishing the “need for catchup,” Bloomberg reported.
The IMF cut its growth outlook for India to 5.9 per cent for the current fiscal year that started in April from 6.1 per cent it had forecast three months ago. For the next fiscal, it has now been reduced by half-a-percentage point to 6.3 per cent, the report said, adding the fund trimmed its global growth projection to 2.8 per cent this year from 2.9 per cent.
According to Choueiri, a “good monsoon” would help reduce food prices that will help bring down the overall inflation to below five per cent in the current fiscal year, the report added.
Sha also said that external risks, including abrupt volatility in the global financial markets and slowdown in the Asian economy’s important export markets could challenge the IMF’s estimates, Bloomberg added.
