World moving towards recession but Indian economy expanding continuously: Experts on IMF report

After the IMF's World Economic Outlook forecast that India is set to remain the fastest-growing among major economies in 2024, experts hailed the IMF projections and highlighted that the Indian economy is set to become third largest in the world soon.

"While the world is moving towards recession, the Indian economy is expanding continuously and it is in likely that India's economy will advance more than before and will certainly become the world's third-largest economy soon," said Ashwini Rana, economist.

He said, "Additionally, international agencies like the World Bank and IMF make their projections about India and keep changing them because the Indian economy is continuously progressing and it will definitely continue to move forward."

He also highlighted that earlier for the previous year 2023-24 IMF had projected 7.6 percent growth but it has increased it now to 7.8 percent.

IMF has attributed robustness and strength in domestic demand and a rising working-age population behind its growth projections.

"IMF has earlier projected 6.5% and now it has projected 6.8% for the calendar year 2024. The 0.3 jump is a quite good jump. We should not consider only 0.3, it is quite a big jump. And this shows that the Indian economy is performing well and all parameters for the growth of the economy are doing well," said Ved Jain, economist.

He said, "The main reason for this growth is the home consumption and domestic demand, which is increasing. And home consumption and domestic demand increases because of the increase in the purchasing power, which indicates that, yes, Indian people are earning more or the per capita income is also rising."

According to IMF, countries with a demographic dividend could help support growth in the global workforce, in which nearly two in every three new entrants over the medium term will come from India and sub-Saharan Africa.

The report further said that China is expected to grow at 4.6 per cent this year and 4.1 per cent in 2025. Economic growth in the 10 emerging markets of the Group of Twenty (G20) has consistently outperformed that of advanced economies over the past two decades.

The Indian economy grew 7.8 per cent and 7.6 per cent during the preceding two quarters: April-June and July-September. India's economy grew 7.2 per cent in 2022-23 and 8.7 per cent in 2021-22, respectively.

Overall, the IMF pegged global growth at 3.2 per cent in 2024 and 2025 respectively. It noted that the global economy remains remarkably resilient, with growth holding steady as inflation returns to target.

Despite many gloomy predictions, the world avoided a recession, the banking system proved largely resilient, and major emerging market economies did not suffer sudden stops, the IMF said.