Arun Jaitley
Urging various stakeholders of the economy to avoid adding a domestic problem to the global crisis, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said political rhetoric in the coming months will be critical for Indian economy.
"Next six months, the political rhetoric are going to be very critical also for Indian economy. I do believe that a lot of what is going to be said and raised over the next five to six months by many may not be an expression of their real intention," he said.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the 91st Annual General Meeting of industry body Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Jaitley said the business community should help raise the quality of public discourse among political parties as the country nears the 2019 general elections.
"Even when the election year debate goes on, many like you will have to flag to different players in the political system the importance of sound policies and how they can be even blended with actually good politics," the Minister said.
Highlighting the theme of the AGM - Builing a New India, Jaitley said the Indian economy has set a target for itself to pull millions of Indians out of poverty and to continuously aim to be the world's largest and fastest growing large economies.
"Over the course of next few years, we intend to even overtake the United Kingdom and then come close to Japan in terms of our GDP, if not per capita. Then in the long run become a part of the big three and then evolve into a developed country," he said.
Jaitley said it was a challenging year, with world's largest economy not playing a stabilising factor, policies of some countries resulting in a trade war with no resolution in sight and the direct adverse impact of high oil prices on currency and trade deficit.
"The last thing we want is to manufacture a domestic problem so that our resilience to this global crisis is diluted," he said hinting at the recent stalemate with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that finally led to the exit of RBI Governor Urjit Patel last Monday.
The Minister repeated that the government respects the autonomy of the central bank but flagging real issues faced by many in the economy and expecting RBI to address the issues of liquidity and credit should not be seen as an interference.
"I see two immediate challenges before us. We need to get out of the syndrome of difficulties in credit and improve the liquidity situations in the market, so that we don't manufacture a challenge for us which is otherwise capable of being tackled," he said.
"And, therefore, for people like you to flag what is sound policy as against transient populism will become all the more important," he added.
