Industry Reactions on Union Budget 2023

The Union Budget 2023 - 2024, presented by the finance minister - Nirmala Sitharaman has received a thumbs up from the Indian markets. With a slew of announcements ranging from the revision of Income Tax Slabs, trimming custom duty on a few products, sops for agriculture, MSMEs and so on.

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has called the union budget 2023 as a balanced budget.

CII President Sanjiv Bajaj said that "This is a budget that balances growth with fiscal prudence. Sticking to the fiscal deficit target of 6.4% and aiming to go below 6%, to 5.9% next year, is a welcome balance. There are a number of other initiatives as well - continuing the credit guarantee scheme for MSMEs expanding that by Rs. 2 lakh crores. As growth comes back, MSMEs will find this significant support.

"This is a budget that balances growth with fiscal prudence. Sticking to the fiscal deficit target of 6.4% and aiming to go below 6%, to 5.9% next year, is a welcome balance. There are a number of other initiatives as well - continuing the credit guarantee scheme for MSMEs expanding that by Rs. 2 lakh crores. As growth comes back, MSMEs will find this a significant support".

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry has praised the budget and added that "The Union Budget for 2023-24 comes across as extremely balanced and progressive. What strikes out most is that there is primacy accorded to growth, which is exactly what we wanted to see. There is clearly a focus on the agriculture sector with significant outlays, and a focus on urbanization and digitalization," said FICCI president Subhrakant Panda.

"We are delighted to see the substantial 33% hike in the capex outlay at 10 lakh crore which is the highest ever, amount ton 3.3% of GDP. We feel that bolstered by these numbers; this will be a year of transition from being substantially government-led capex to the private sectors also coming in to play a noticeable role."