May be dead bodies do move, India growing at 7%: Panagariya on Trump's dead economy jibe

New Delhi: Dismissing US President Donald Trump's "dead economy" jibe, 16th Finance Commission Chairman Arvind Panagariya on Friday said the Indian economy is growing at 7 per cent, and more than that in dollar terms.

Panagariya was speaking at the Business Today India@100 event.

"You don't grow at 7 per cent plus (if the economy is dead), and actually in dollar terms we are growing at more than 7 per cent. I don't know what the definition (of dead economy) means. May be, dead bodies do move," he said when asked if India is a dead economy.

Asked about India's trade protectionism, Panagariya said: "There may be protectionist measures... We are substantially open".

Mounting a sharp attack on India, Trump had remarked that India is a "dead economy".

"I don't care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care," Trump had said in a social media post on July 31.

Trump later imposed 50 per cent tariff on Indian goods imported to the US with a brief exemption list.

Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal had last week asserted in Parliament that India is the world's fastest-growing major economy, contributing almost 16 per cent to the global growth and will soon become the third-largest economy in the world.

"In just over a decade, India has rapidly transformed from being one of the Fragile 5 to the fastest-growing major economy in the world. We have risen from the 11th largest economy to one of the top 5 economies, driven by our reforms, the hard work of our farmers, MSMEs and entrepreneurs," Goyal had said in Parliament on July 31.