Growth likely to exceed 7% in FY23, says RBI

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 24

Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said the growth for 2022-23 is expected to be more than the advance estimate of 7% on the back of economic momentum maintained in the third and fourth quarters of the last fiscal.

“There is a possibility that it could be even more...it will not be a surprise if the GDP growth of last year comes slightly above 7%,” he said at a CII event here.

The provisional annual estimates for the year 2022-23 will be released on May 31, 2023. The second advance estimates released in February estimated growth at 7% in 2022-23 against 8.7% in the 2021-22. For the current fiscal, the RBI has projected a growth rate of 6.5%.

“It initially appeared in the third quarter that there was a pent-up demand which was supporting the economic activity, but all the economic indicators in the fourth quarter of last financial year show that economic activities sustained momentum. In fact, all the high-frequency indicators, around 70 of them, which we monitored in the RBI, almost in all of these high-frequency indicators, the momentum was maintained in the fourth quarter. So therefore, we should not be surprised if the growth is slightly more than 7%,” he said.

Commenting on speculation of RBI continuing with the pause in the interest rates, he said, “It is not in my hands. It all depends on the situation on the ground. I am driven by what’s happening on the ground. What is the outlook on the ground? What are the trends? How is the inflation buildup or the inflation softening? So, it’s not a decision which is entirely in my hands, because I am driven by what’s happening at the ground level.”

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