Shaktikanta Das reiterates growth forecast in new FM's first FSDC meet

Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday reiterated the central bank’s gross domestic product growth forecast of 7 per cent for India in 2019-20.
 
“On the outlook for India, for the current year we have projected 7 per cent. We have also flagged the other issues in the Monetary Policy Committee resolution, and in the statement, which I made after the MPC. Beyond that, I have nothing to add,” said Das, when asked about India’s growth projections. Das was speaking to journalists outside the Finance Ministry after attending a meeting of the Financial Stability Development Council (FSDC), which was chaired by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for the first time. Sitharaman, regulators, and senior finance ministry officials discussed the proposals in the upcoming Union Budget, the state of the economy and the overall macro-economic situation.

 
“This was first meeting after the new government assumed office, the first meeting for the new finance minister. As discussed in the other FSDC meetings, there was a general review of the current state of the economy, of the overall macro-economic situation, global developments, and there was a discussion on the forthcoming Budget and various Budget-related suggestions and proposals were discussed,” Das said.
 

Das also said the Bimal Jalan panel, tasked with defining guidelines for transferring the central bank’s excess capital to the government, will submit its report by the end of the month.
 
Apart from Sitharaman and Das, the meeting was attended by Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, Sebi Chairman Ajay Tyagi, IRDAI Chairman Subhash Chandra Khuntia, and IBBI Chairman M S Sahoo. From the ministry, Finance Secretary Subhash Garg, Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar, Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas, Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey, and Chief Economic Advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian also attended the meeting.

 
“The Council was also apprised of the progress made towards setting up of the Financial Data Management Centre (FDMC) to facilitate integrated data aggregation and analysis as also a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-Fin) towards strengthening the cyber security framework for the financial sector,” said an official statement.