Revive investment to boost growth, jobs: Economic Survey

The pre-Budget Economic Survey on Wednesday called for investments, especially in infrastructure, to revive growth and jobs while carrying out tax and subsidy reforms for fiscal consolidation, projecting an up to 5.9 per cent GDP growth this year.

The Survey, tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament ahead of his maiden Budget tomorrow, also suggested tough measures to shore up public finances and reduce inflation.

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Among the measures suggested are massive investment in infrastructure, market-linked reforms, boost to manufacturing, tax reforms and structural changes in various sectors to bring the economy back on track.

The fiscal situation of the central government is worse than it appears, given the acceleration of inflation from 2006 to 2014, the Survey said.

Moderation in inflation would help ease the monetary policy stance and revive the confidence of investors.

With the global economy expected to recover moderately, particularly on account of performance in some advanced economies, the economy can look forward to better growth prospect in 2014 and beyond, it said.

The Survey acknowledged that inflation has eased but is still above comfort level.

After tabling the Survey, Jaitley told reporters that fiscal deficit for the current year will be 4.5 per cent which needs to go down further in the next two years.

In 2014-15, the Survey claims that the economy is poised to overcome the sub-5 per cent growth of GDP witnessed in the last two years which affected in particular the industrial sector.

It, however, sounded a cautious note saying agriculture production may be impacted this year if a likely El Nino torpedoes monsoon rainfall, putting pressure on food prices. 

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