Indian Economy Can Grow At 9.5% In 2021:IMF, Uncertainty Due To Covid-Delta Variant

According to International Monetary Fund's (IMF) recent projection, the Indian economy can grow at 9.5% in 2021, and 8.5% in 2022. the country's economy plunged by 7.3% in the last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. IMF has also released projections for China, and the economy is expected to grow at 8% in 2021 and 5.6% in 2022. In addition to that, IMF officially stated, aggregate output for the emerging market and developing economy group (apart from China) is foreseen to remain 5.5% which is below the pre-pandemic forecast in 2024. This is not a very promising projection for human development and economies.

Gita Gopinath, Chief Economist, IMF commented on the projections, "The outlook for the low-income developing country group has darkened considerably due to worsening pandemic dynamics. The downgrade also reflects more difficult near-term prospects for the advanced economy group, in part due to supply disruptions."

On the other hand, the IMF has revised its projection and stated that the global economy is anticipated to grow at 5.9% in 2021 and 4.9% in 2022. The global growth anticipation has been dragged down marginally.

The IMF thinks that this is "Partially offset by stronger near-term prospects among some commodity-exporting emerging market and developing economies. The rapid spread of Delta and the threat of new variants have increased uncertainty about how quickly the pandemic can be overcome. Policy choices have become more difficult, with limited room to maneuver."

Later Gopinath added, "Partially offsetting these changes, projections for some commodity exporters have been upgraded on the back of rising commodity prices. Pandemic-related disruptions to contact-intensive sectors have caused the labor market recovery to significantly lag the output recovery in most countries."

The IMF has also focussed on the fact that the high-income countries are required to fulfill existing vaccine dose donation pledges. Vaccinating at least 40% of the population in each country by the end of this year and 70% by mid-2022 is important now. Prioritizing deliveries to COVAX soon and easing the trade restrictions are immediate needs now.