Next up, legal, bureaucracy, currency reforms: Sanval

Reforming India’s administrative machinery and the legal system, along with making the rupee a hard currency, widely accepted for global transactions, are top on the government’s next reform agenda, said Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Economic Advisory Council.

- Rhik Kundu & Gireesh Chandra Prasad

In an interview, Sanyal said that maintaining macroeconomic stability and taking care of the bottom of the pyramid are the two key pillars of the government’s economic management strategy. Edited excerpts:

How do you see the Indian economy faring in the coming quarters?

Our GDP (gross domestic product) rowth will be somewhere in the 6.5-7% range. Given the global uncertainties, I would argue this is a very robust growth rate and makes us the fastest-growing major economy. But, let us be clear that the global environment remains very challenging. There are signs that global growth is slowing down. With the slowing of global trade, exports as a growth generator will not be robust. Given the international situation, energy prices should have eased but have gone up again. The automatic stabilization process, through falling energy prices, is not happening. Meanwhile, global liquidity continues to be tightening. Given this scenario, we need to drive carefully.

Domestic momentum will get us close to 7% growth, but, of course, uncertainties remain around El Niño and the monsoon.

Falling exports are a concern. How should we address the situation?