What's your view on India's economic growth?

What is your view on Indian economic growth considering the current socio-political outlook, China's aggressive posture against India and the never-ending catastrophic effects of the COVID pandemic?
-Somnath Biswas

It is tough to predict the short term, and I don't know anything about it. But in the long term, I am highly optimistic. Some very positive changes have happened, and their benefits will last long - for example, the changes in the financial framework.

Implementation of GST will lead to the formalisation of many businesses, which wasn't possible earlier. Anyone could sell something and evade taxes because of which an informal economy was developing. Everything has some plus and minus and this too. But as a net effect, I see it as more beneficial. The informal economy deprived many people of facilities and protection that they would otherwise get in India.

Another example could be how digitisation has happened. And then, the corporate tax rate has also been reduced. So all these things that have happened irreversibly make me very optimistic for the medium to long term.

Even if you look at the current situation, the deceleration of growth worldwide has not landed us in a mess despite the bad times. So, to conclude, I am very optimistic from a medium to long-term perspective but do not know anything for a shorter time frame. It is very hard to predict.

This article was originally published on January 26, 2022.