India ready to face Fed tapering, to grow 5%, says FM

Federal Reserve to trim its $85-b stimulus

 Assuring global investors that India is prepared to face the impact of US Fed tapering, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday said the country is poised to clock 5 per cent growth in the current fiscal and over 6 per cent a year after.

The Indian economy, he said while addressing the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting here, has “stabilised and it is poised to return to high growth path and step by step we will go back to 8 per cent growth rate”.

In the current financial year, Chidambaram said the country would see a growth of about 5 per cent, “but next fiscal we will cross 6 per cent”.

India’s growth rate slipped to a decadal low of 5 per cent in 2012-13.

Two days ago, French bank BNP Paribas' wealth management arm had said in a note that the Indian economy would expand by 4.3 per cent in 2013-14 and the growth to pick up and touch 5.1 per cent in 2014-15.

Talking about the impact of calibrated tapering of bond purchases by the US Federal Reserve, Chidambaram said, “We have done a lot of preparatory work. There will be some consequences on emerging economies but I think we are better prepared now to face the taper”.

The Federal Reserve has announced trimming of its $85 billion monthly stimulus after US economic indicators improved.

“Fiscal consolidation has taken place, there’s more FDI flowing into India. We’ve added to our reserves, the rupee is stable and a number of other measures have been taken to bring stability into the capital market,” he said.