Budget to follow spirit of earlier ones: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 16

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said the forthcoming Union Budget would “follow the spirit” of earlier ones, indicating that the government would continue to push growth on the back of public spending.

Recession won’t affect exports

The suspected long-drawn recession, which is likely to affect Europe, is not going to hit exports by Indian businesses. Nirmala Sitharaman, Finance Minister

“It is very inspiring and motivating for me, especially at a time when we are preparing the next Budget for the country, a Budget which will follow the spirit of the earlier ones. We are going to set the template, which was set to earlier but follow it and take it further for India’s next 25 years,” she said at an event here.

Sitharaman is scheduled to present her fifth straight Budget on February 1.

The Budget 2023-24 will be presented against the backdrop of lowered growth expectations with Sitharaman in September calling on the private sector to make more capital investments as public capital expenditure would become unsustainable.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cut India’s growth forecast to 6.8 per cent for the current fiscal.

The RBI projected the real GDP growth for 2022-23 at 6.8 per cent, with the third quarter at 4.4 per cent and the fourth at 4.2 per cent. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is projected at 7.1 per cent for the April-June period of 2023-24 and at 5.9 per cent for the following quarter.

The Budget for the next year will have to address critical issues of elevated levels of inflation, boosting demand, job creation and putting the economy on a sustained 8 per cent plus growth path.

It will be the fifth Budget of the Modi 2.0 government and Sitharaman, and the last full Budget before the General Election to be held in April-May 2024.

Meanwhile, Sitharaman asked the industry to work out strategies as to how businesses operating in developed countries could look at India as a production or sourcing hub amid recession fears in the western countries. “India has brought in a lot of facilitation and tweaking of rules to attract foreign investment into India and is also engaging with industries who want to co-locate in the country,” the minister said.

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