Thursday, August 23, 2018

Q&A on Economy & Trade

 Interview given to Bijoy Kumar Sing of PTI on August, 9, 2018:


Q1: What is you assessment of current macroeconomic situation in India? Some experts believe that  the macro situation is becoming more challenging in the last year of Modi  government? FDI growth hits 5-year low in 2017-18, rupee has depreciated, oil prices and inflation are rising? 
A1: Economic growth, which has been subject to many ups and downs over the past seven years, seems to be back on a recovery path. The most important indicator of this is the rate of growth of real fixed investment, an essential element of sustained, sustainable growth. On the external front some challenges such as the threat of rising interest rates and commodity prices are the negative face of a rise in developed country growth. So they are partly offsetting. The rise in oil prices due to Geopolitical factors, like Iran sanctions are however a concern.  The US-China Tariff war however provides an opportunity to increase India’s exports to the USA and to attract, labor intensive elements of the global supply chain unsettled by higher “China risk”, to India. Domestically the main risk to macro stability, is politically driven Govt consumption spending at the cost of investment and fiscal prudence. If this temptation is resisted, the country will be back on a firm 7.5% plus growth track. 

    Q2: India has emerged as the sixth largest economy replacing France? How do you see this development?
A2: in a series of papers since 2004, I had predicted the rise of China and India as economic powers (https://sites.google.com/site/drarvindvirmani/india-great-power ). India will become the fifth largest economy in 2018 and the 3rd largest, after USA &  China, by 2025 (in current US dollars). According to the index I developed for making these projections, VIPP, India will become a great power by ~ 2035. It is very important for our elites to understand both the strengths and the limitations of these developments. We must start planning our global interactions and acting like a leading power, without ignorantly imagining that we are already a Great Power (that is 20yrs away). 

    Q3: The US actions on trade have emerged as the biggest worry for global growth. What will be impact of rising trade tensions on Indian economy and what should be India's strategy?
A3: We must distinguish between US trade actions against market economies like EU, Canada, Mexico and other market economies from those against non-market China. The conventional wisdom that everyone will loose from a trade war applies to the former, but not to the latter. A single party dictatorship has dozens of ways of imposing non-tariff barriers on imports & foreign investment, that free open democracies, run by rule of law, cannot even imagine. The US-China tariff war will have some short term disruptive effects on global economy, but provides great opportunity for India to attract Labour intensive, export oriented and Indian market oriented investment from those currently located in China. The Indian Govt, private industry and PSUs must make an effort to attract them to India.

    Q4: The general elections are less than a year away and there is a possibility of populist policies being announced by both the central and state governments. Is there a possibility of slippages in the fiscal deficit?
A4: Historically every Govt pushes up what are referred to as populist expenditure in the year or so leading up to the election. The test is if they keep it modest and don’t disturb the trend in fiscal responsibility. There is therefore always a risk of fiscal slippage. At State level, this is partly linked to losses incurred by State electricity distribution. 

    Q5: Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that demonetisation will reduce generation of black money in India. But money deposited by Indian's in Swiss banks rose by 50 per cent last year. So, how do you read the effects of demonetisation nearly two years later.
A5: The data that I have seen shows that money deposited by Indians in Swiss banks has been on and remains on a downtrend. As as demonetization, I had written the week after demonetization that it would reduce the growth rate of the economy by about 0.5-0.6% in the 6 months following the demonetization or about 1% for the year as whole (assuming the recovery takes a year). My subsequent estimates show a loss of 1.2% of GDP in the 12 months following demonetization. On the positive side I had predicted an increase in income tax compliance, which seems to be happening (as per limited data available). The effect on black money in real estate and elsewhere did take place, but seems to have been less permanent. 

    Q6: There is common perception that departures of foreign' economic advisers (Raghuram Rajan, Arvind Panagariya and Arvind Subramanian) underline the Modi administration's rejection of free trade and open market approaches to policy in favor of protecting domestic industries and farmers. Your comments.
A6: Since I retired from the post of Chief Economic Advisor at the end of 2009, my successors as CEA (Kaushik Basu, RaghuRam Rajan and Arvind Subramanian) have all returned to jobs abroad, after completing their Indian tenure. The same happened in the case of Arvind Panagriya of NIti. In my judgement this is not primarily due to any disagreement on free trade and open markets, which is indeed one of the weak points of the current Govt (I have argued for trade reform in the, Bibek Debroy edited, book, “India at 70, Modi @3.5 “ )

    Q7: Recently Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu had said that 40 per cent of India's GDP will come from exports by 2025, and India's economy will be a USD 5 trillion economy 2025. At present, exports constitute only 18 per cent of USD 2.6 trillion GDP. Do you agree with Prabhu?
A7: An open economy is one of the drivers of growth in a connected and liberal world, which is why I have continuously argued for reform and liberalization of EXIM policy(agriculture) and of import tariffs and export duties. I continue to do so. However, given the anti- free trade sentiments sweeping the world, we have to be a little more selective and cautious in dealing with non-market, non democratic countries which find it easy to follow non-transparent policies that harm our interests. This poses a challenge for instance in concluding the RECEP agreement.