Double Digit Growth Rate By Last Quarter Of FY19 If India Decides To Do Business Honestly: Piyush Goyal

“I see double digit growth happening by the fourth quarter of this year. There is a demand optic in the country and this growth will be driven by a society that has become very aspirational," said Railways and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal today (18 June), according to a report in the Business Standard. Goyal is also holding temporary charge of the Finance Ministry owing to the health of Arun Jaitley. The minister’s remarks came in response to a query posed to him at the Growth Net conclave in New Delhi.

Goyal’s belief was based on the revival of domestic demand and the an increasingly aspirational society. However, in his own words, the caveat to this was ‘when this country decides to do business honestly’.

The current NDA government has undertaken many economic reforms which commentators have described as ones entailing short term pain for gain in the long run. For example, this Swarajya piece lists down five such arrows of Modinomics—

1) Fiscal policy consolidation while increasing infra spend
2) Monetary policy hawkishness and low inflation
3) Structural reforms - like the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) bill, bankruptcy law
4) Formalisation of economy - demonetisation, digitalisation and,
5) State capacity creation and smart welfare.

If Piyush Goyal’s prediction is indeed true, then the long run of gains is set to begin sooner than expected.