The National Council of Applied Economic Research had predicted a 6.2 per cent growth rate of the Indian economy in 2017-18. It has predicted that growth in agriculture, gross value added (GVA), will be 3 per cent, industry GVA at 4.5 per cent, and services GVA at 7.6 per cent in 2017-18. The Wholesale Price Index inflation is projected at 6.7 per cent and growth rates in export and imports, in dollar terms, are estimated at 10.7 per cent and 24.4 per cent, respectively.
The review suggests that recovery of the Indian industrial sector is shaky due to the implementation challenges faced by the Goods and Services Tax, and uneven demand. “With greater emphasis on improving ease of doing business, attracting foreign inflows, recapitalising public sector banks and efforts to achieve continuous improvements on the GST front, the Indian industrial sector hopes to overcome its transition blue in 2018-19,” the review said. The forecast is a part of the 2017-18 Mid-year Review of the Indian Economy released in partnership with the India International Centre.
Besides an independent stocktaking of the Indian economy's performance, this year's Mid-Year Review also tracks the major policy disruptions that happened in recent times. The first of these is on 'GST Reform: Some Design Issues', where the think-tank recommends the pruning of GST rates from the current six, to two. The second paper titled 'Some Select Issues in Financial Markets'. assesses the pros and cons of the recent policy announcement about recapitalisation of public sector banks, issues of credit growth, and the impact of demonetisation on digitisation.
