India’s Budget Speech By Pranab Mukherjee
By Rile at February 26, 2010 | 8:50 pm | Print
India ’s Finance Minster, Mr.Pranab Mukherjee has presented this fiscal year ’s budget.His speech outline few important things.
Few Points He Made:
The first challenge before us is to quickly revert to the high GDP growth path of 9 per cent and then find the means to cross the ‘double digit growth barrier’. This calls for imparting a fresh momentum to the impressive recovery in growth witnessed in the past few months. In this endeavour, I seek Lord Indra’s help to make the recovery more broad‐based in the coming months.
The fiscal year 2009‐10 was a challenging year for the Indian economy. The significant deceleration in the second half of 2008‐09, brought the real GDP growth down to 6.7 per cent, from an average of over 9 per cent in the preceding three years. We were among the first few countries in the world to implement a broad‐based counter‐cyclic policy package to respond to the negative fallout of the global slowdown. It included a substantial fiscal expansion along with liberal monetary policy support.
The effectiveness of these policy measures became evident with fast paced recovery. The economy stabilized in the first quarter of 2009‐10 itself, when it clocked a GDP growth of 6.1 per cent, as against 5.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of the preceding year. It registered a strong rebound in the second quarter, when the growth rate rose to 7.9 per cent. With the Advance Estimates placing the likely growth for 2009‐10 at 7.2 per cent, we are indeed vindicated in our policy stand. The final figure may well turn out to be higher when the third and fourth quarter GDP estimates for 2009‐10 become available.
This recovery is very encouraging for it has come about despite a negative growth in the agriculture sector. More importantly, it is the result of a renewed momentum in the manufacturing sector and marks the rise of this sector as the growth driver of the economy. The growth rate in manufacturing in December 2009 was 18.5 per cent— the highest in the past two decades. There are also signs of a turnaround in the merchandise exports with a positive growth in November and December 2009 after a decline of about twelve successive months. Export figures for January are also encouraging. Significant private investment can now be expected to provide the engine for sustaining a growth of 9 per cent per annum. With some luck, I hope to breach the 10 per cent mark in not‐too‐distant a future.
A major concern during the second half of 2009‐10 has been the emergence of double digit food inflation. There was a momentum in food prices since the flare‐up of global commodity prices preceding the financial crisis in 2008, but it was expected that the agriculture season beginning June 2009 would help in moderating the food inflation.
Improving Investment Environment
Foreign Direct Investment
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows during the year have been steady in spite of the decline in global capital flows. India received FDI equity inflows of US$ 20.9 billion during April‐December, 2009 compared to US$ 21.1 billion during the same period last year.
Government has taken a number of steps to simplify the FDI regime to make it easily comprehensible to foreign investors. For the first time, both ownership and control have been recognised as central to the FDI policy, and methodology for calculation of indirect foreign investment in Indian companies has been clearly defined. A consistent policy on downstream investment has also been formulated. Another major initiative has been the complete liberalization of pricing and payment of technology transfer fee, trademark, brand name and royalty payments. These payments can now be made under the automatic route.
