India's economy will pick up in 2018-19: Economic Survey estimates growth at 7-7.5%

The Economic Survey of India was tabled in both houses of Parliament on Monday.

New Delhi: India is expected to regain the world's fastest growing major economy tag as it is likely to clock 7-7.5 percent growth rate in 2018-19, up from 6.75 percent in the current fiscal, the Economic Survey said on Monday.

The survey said that the economy, for 2017-18, will grow on the back of major reforms which would be strengthened further in the next financial year.

The survey was tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

"A series of major reforms undertaken over the past year will allow real GDP growth to reach 6.75 percent this fiscal and will rise to 7 to 7.5 percent in 2018-19, thereby re- instating India as the world's fastest growing major economy," it said.

At preliminary analysis of the Goods and Services Tax data the survey found 50 percent increase in the number of indirect taxpayers.

Gross Value Added (GVA) is expected to grow by 6.1 percent in 2017-18 as compared to 6.6 percent in 2016-17. Economy accelerated in second half of current fiscal due to GST, bank recapitalisation, liberalisation of FDI and higher exports.

The Survey said that there is need to address pendency, delays and backlogs in the appellate and judicial arenas.

The survey points out that India can be rated as among the best performing economies in the world as the average growth during last three years is around 4 percentage points higher than global growth and nearly 3 percentage points higher than that of emerging market and developing economies.

It said that the GDP growth has averaged 7.3 percent from 2014-15 to 2017-18, which is the highest among the major economies of the world.

"That this growth has been achieved in a milieu of lower inflation, improved current account balance and notable reduction in the fiscal deficit to GDP ratio makes it all the more creditable," it said.

It also said implementing a major recapitalisation package to strengthen the public sector banks, further liberalisation of foreign direct investment and the export uplift from the global recovery had played a major role in boosting the growth.