Economy can grow around 6% in 2013: Kaushik Basu

Source: Press Trust of India via Indian Economic Business News

India’s economy could expand by around 6 per cent in 2013, World Bank Chief Economist Kaushik Basu said, attributing the current slowdown to global factors. Amid global slowdown impacting India, the government had lowered the country’s economic growth for the 2012-13 fiscal to 5.7-5.9 per cent from its earlier projection of 7.6 per cent. The GDP had expanded by 6.5 per cent in 2011-12, which was nine-year low. On India’s current account deficit (CAD) which widened to record 5.4 per cent of GDP in the July-September quarter, Mr. Basu said that though it is a cause of worry, there are market factors which will come into play to stabilise it. “India has proper floating exchange rate, it (CAD) is not as worrying because there are automatic market stabiliser which will begin to kick in,” he said. The CAD, which represents the difference between exports and imports after considering cash remittances and payment, was $18.9 billion in the same period of a year ago and $16.4 billion in the first quarter (April-June).