India will continue to be world’s fastest growing large economy for many decades to come: Piyush Goyal at Asia Economic Dialogue, Pune
27 February 2023: Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Textiles and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal addressed Asia Economic Dialogue in Pune recently. Minister shared his conviction that India would be the third largest economy in four years or so, at best five years. “My own conviction about the way India is growing is that we will drive our economy probably closer to 35-40 trillion-dollar economy by 2047.”
Minister exhorted industry to be proud of their achievements, of our strong macroeconomic fundamentals, about the reforms done in the past few years. “We believe India not only is the fastest growing large economy, we will continue to be so for many decades to come.”
Minister observed that Asia has its own particular dynamics, where we have economies which are both democracies and those which are non-transparent and non-rule-based. “In the last decade or so, India has been wanting to internationalize and engage with technology and modern way of working. Today, India is clearly recognized as the country of the decade, if not the country of the 21st century. We have already moved from the tenth largest to the fifth largest economy.”
Minister said that Russia-Ukraine conflict has had a severe effect on the developed world more than the developing countries. For food security and energy security and consequential impact on inflation, interest rates and growth, it has had a devastating effect on both developed and developing countries, he added.
The Commerce Minister said that over the years, we have hurt India’s interests by making our people getting used to low-cost substandard goods from China. “The trade deficit with China which was under 2 billion dollars around 15-16 years ago, increased to around 48 billion dollars by 2014. We allowed products to come from China while they stopped our products from India to go to China through legitimate or illegitimate reasons. Hence, it was music to my ear when Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to not join RCEP on 4th November, 2019, which was celebrated across the country by every section of industry and business, every farmer and every person associated with dairy sector.”
Speaking of Free Trade Agreements, the Minister told industry representatives that we did the fastest ever FTA in the history of the world, the India UAE Agreement having been completed in 88 days. “We also completed a fast FTA with Australia. That is the enthusiasm the world is demonstrating towards working with India. We have negotiations going on with Israel, Canada, EU, UK and GCC. Russia and its partner countries of EAU too want to fast-track negotiations with India.”