The country is maintaining “momentum” as the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
India has lifted 135 million people out of poverty in the past five years and remains the world’s “fastest-growing” major economy, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told the country’s parliament on Thursday.
Sitharaman, who featured on Forbes’ ‘World’s Most Powerful Women’ list this week, was citing numbers contained in a report on poverty by the government advisory body NITI Aayog. The report, published in July, assessed “acute deprivations in health, education, and standard of living” using UN-approved parameters.
In 2022, around 15% of the Indian population was living in poverty, compared to 24.8% in 2015-16.
Speaking about the country’s economic indicators, Sitharaman noted that economic growth was “very high, it is the highest in the world” during the second quarter of the fiscal year. “We continuously maintain that momentum of being the fastest-growing economy”, she added.
Her remarks came a day before India’s central bank increased its GDP growth forecast for the 2023-24 financial year on Friday from 6.5% to 7%, following better-than-expected growth in the quarter that ended in September. The Reserve Bank of India also kept the repo rate unchanged at 6.5%.
Source: India Times, RT
