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NITI Aayog member Arvind Virmani has said the Indian economy is likely to grow at around 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal (FY24), in spite of high oil prices and increased geopolitical tensions. He further said that he does not see any impact of the US and European banking crisis on the Indian financial sector. He said ‘So in the current fiscal year because of all the changes which have happened in the last year, I have reduced my India’s economic growth forecast by 0.5 per cent. So it is 6.5 per cent, again plus minus 0.5 per cent’.

Regarding Reserve Bank of India’s flexible inflation targeting, Virmani said ‘we should be more like the US Federal Reserve, which has an inflation target but also takes account of GDP’. The government has mandated the central bank to ensure that retail inflation based on the consumer price index (CPI) remains at 4 per cent with a margin of 2 per cent on either side.

Talking about India can replicate the economic success that has made China central to the world economy and global power, he said that he does not think any other country now will be allowed to follow unfair trade policies which China had followed. He said ‘and my estimate is that roughly 1/3 of China’s growth would not have happened, if it did not have these unfair trade policies’. He pointed out that India doesn’t follow an asymmetric policy and it can grow at 6.5-7 per cent without following unfair trade policies.