Arvind Subramanian, the former senior economic adviser, said on Friday that the latest GDP figures for India are 'totally perplexing' and challenging to understand.
In the last three months of 2023, India's GDP expanded by 8.4%, faster than anticipated and at its strongest rate in 1.5 years.
"I want to be honest with you that the latest GDP numbers, I just simply can not understand them."With all due respect and all that, I say that. They are utterly perplexing. They are not cumulative. Speaking at the India Today colloquium, Subramanian remarked, "I have no idea what they mean.
The NSO has also updated its GDP projections for the first and second quarters of this fiscal year, bringing them down from 7.8% and 7.6% to 8.2% and 8.1%, respectively.
Subramanian went on to explain that although the figures suggest inflation of 1 to 1.5%, the real inflation rate in the economy is actually closer to 3 to 5%.
"The economy is growing at seven and a half per cent, even though private consumption is at 3 percent," he stated.
Furthermore, Subramanian stated that in the most recent data, the anticipated 7.6 percent growth for FY24 is actually less than 4.3 percentage points due to inaccuracies and omissions that are not taken into consideration.
"There's a lot of information on numbers that, as you may know, I find confusing. Not that these are incorrect, mind you. Others should judge that," the ex-CEA remarked.
Subramanian claims that despite the general perception that the economy has improved and is now a great area to invest, it has actually dropped significantly over the past several quarters and years.
"... you can see foreign direct investment actually collapsed quite a bit," he stated.
The former CEA questioned why there isn't more foreign direct investment in India given that the country has grown so appealing.
