In an interview with The Indian Express, IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath discussed India’s growth and being the fastest growing major economy.
Gopinath said that India is doing “extremely well” in terms of growth numbers, adding that it is a vital contributor to the global growth being witnessed right now. She further said that if India continues to make serious reforms, it can maintain its growth.
Growth with job creation
Gopinath said India’s growth can be increased and with that the per capita income will see a rise too. However, she added that it is crucial that the growth comes along with “a lot of job creation”.
She said that in terms of additional job creation, India needs at least 60 million and 148 million more jobs in six years till 2030. “That will not happen if you just focus on a couple of sectors or particular areas. It’s going to require broad based growth across the different sectors,” she said.
Based on what Gopinath said, India would need to create 10 million to 24 million jobs annually.
Talking about major challenges facing the global economy, Gopinath said one of the first challenge is inflation. “It’s been coming down for most countries in the world, and we expect that to continue, but the job is not completely done at this point. So we just need to make sure that that happens without there being any big effect on terms of economic activity.”
Besides this, commodity prices will see the impact of challenges coming in from geopolitics and conflicts around the world. “And there’s a risk that if there is further increase in tensions in the Middle East that could have that could raise oil prices, for example. So that’s another area that has implications for the world,” she added.