The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday reduced its growth projections for India to 1.9 percent for the financial year 2020-21 (April 2020 - March 2021) on account of the COVID-19 pandemic-led slowdown.
This is a sharp reduction in India’s growth projection by the agency, which just three months back in January projected a growth rate of 5.8 percent for the Indian economy.
In January, the World Bank had also forecast the Indian economy to grow at 5.8 percent in the financial year 2020-21. But in the latest projections outlined in the institution’s recent South Asia Economic Focus Report, estimates have been lowered to the range of 1.5 percent to 2.8 percent in 2020-21.
For the financial year 2019-2020, the IMF expects the Indian economy to grow at 4.2 percent. A day ahead of the national budget tabled by Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 2 February this year, the finance ministry in its economic survey had projected a GDP growth rate of 6 percent to 6.5 percent.
The IMF has projected that the GDP is likely to see 7.4 percent growth during 2021-22.
