The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday projected an impressive 11.5 per cent growth rate for India in 2021, making the country the only major economy of the world to register a double-digit growth this year amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
IMF's growth projections for India in its latest World Economic Outlook Update released on Tuesday reflected a strong rebound in the economy, which is estimated to have contracted by 8 per cent in 2020 due to the pandemic.
In its latest update, the IMF projected a 11.5 per cent growth rate for India in 2021. This makes India the only major economy of the world to register a double-digit growth in 2021, it said.
China is next with 8.1 per cent growth in 2021 followed by Spain (5.9 percent) and France (5.5 percent).
Revising its figures, the IMF said that in 2020, the Indian economy is estimated to have contracted by 8 percent. China is the only major country which is registered a positive growth rate of 2.3 percent in 2020.
The Indian economy, the IMF said, is projected to grow by 6.8 percent in 2022 and that of China by 5.6 percent.
With the latest projections, India regains the tag of the fastest developing economies of the world.
Early this month, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva had said that India “actually has taken very decisive action, very decisive steps to deal with the pandemic and to deal with the economic consequences of it”.
India, she said, went for a very dramatic lockdown for a country of this size of population with people clustered so closely together. And then India moved to more targeted restrictions and lockdowns.
“What we see is that transition, combined with policy support, seems to have worked well. Why? Because of you look at mobility indicators we are almost where we were before Covid in India, meaning that economic activities have been revatilised quite significantly," the IMF chief said.
Commending the steps being taken by the Indian government on the monetary policy and the fiscal policy side, she said it is actually slightly above the average for emerging markets.
(With inputs from agencies)