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Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran has expressed hope that the Indian economy will maintain the trend growth rate of 6.5 per cent and above for the rest of the years in the current decade. He said the economy will close the current fiscal logging in a growth of 6.5-7 per cent, citing the projections of private sector analysts, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and international agencies like OECD and the IMF.

He mentioned ‘This appears to be reasonable at this point in time although we will get the data on the fiscal second quarter in a few days, which will give more clarity on these numbers. By and large, the projections for FY24 coming from international agencies is converging around 6-6.2 per cent.’

Besides, citing the high credit growth which peaked at 18 per cent in October, he said the prospects for the capex cycle return is imminent in the medium term. He based his optimism on a slew of factors like rising capital formation by way of better and healthier balance-sheets of the banking sector, highly deleveraged corporate sector and the capacity utilisation levels reaching the levels which in the past had triggered capex. According to him, the private sector capex in the first half of the current fiscal has already crossed the Rs 3 lakh crore-mark and if the pace continues, 'we should be looking at Rs 6 lakh crore for this year'.