India to be fastest growing economy: IMF

New Delhi, October 12

India will be the fastest growing major economy in the world in fiscal 2022, said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday.

India will also be the fastest growing economy in 2021 despite the IMF and the UN reducing India’s growth projections after the second Covid wave cut into the recovery momentum.

The IMF said India was forecast to grow at 9.5 per cent in 2021, which is nearly double the growth prospects for the US and Euro area. China was projected to grow by 8 per cent although with a base four times larger than that of India.

In 2022, the Indian economic growth is projected at 8.5 per cent, as against 5.2 per cent by the US, 4.3 in the Euro area and 5.6 in China. The strong performance by India and China will lift the growth for “emerging and developing Asia” to 6.3 per cent. In early 2021, the UN and IMF had forecast India’s growth in 2022 in double digits after a recessionary 2021. But the growth projections were revised downwards with the UN stating that with India becoming the “new hotbed of the pandemic”. — TNS