'8% Growth Forecast For India Not Ours': IMF

Washington: The International Monetary Fund has stated that Krishnamurthy Subramanian, Executive Director, did not speak for the organisation when he made his recent comments regarding India's growth statistics; rather, he was speaking in his role as India's representative at the global body.

"The views conveyed ...by Mr. Subramanian were in his role as India's representative at the IMF," Julie Kozack, IMF spokesperson, told reporters in Washington today.

She was responding to a question on recent remarks by Mr Subramanian, in which he projected a growth rate of 8 per cent for India, which is different from the last growth rate projections by the IMF.

Mr Subramanian, at an event in New Delhi on March 28, had said the Indian economy could grow at 8 per cent till 2047 if the country redoubles the good policies that it has implemented over the last 10 years and accelerates reforms.

"So, the basic idea is that with the kind of growth that India has registered in the last 10 years if we can redouble the good policies that we have implemented over the last 10 years and accelerate the reforms, then India can grow at 8 per cent from here on till 2047," he had said.

The IMF spokesperson clarified, "We do have an Executive Board. That Executive Board is made up of executive directors who are representatives of countries or groups of countries, and they make up the Executive Board of the IMF. And that's distinct, of course, from the work of the IMF staff."

The IMF will be updating its World Economic Outlook in the next couple of weeks. "But our growth projections as of January were for medium-term growth of 6.5 per cent, and that was a slight upward revision relative to October. Again, we will be presenting the latest forecast in just a couple of weeks," Ms Kozack said.

With PTI inputs