India, Japan among top ten economies consistently growing above pre-pandemic level: PHD Chamber

NEW DELHI: Global economic prospects have shown a significant deceleration for the year 2023 as 94 economies will be growing below the pre–pandemic level of 2019, said an in-depth analysis conducted by the PHD Research Bureau, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi. This analysis is based on the IMF records on the GDP growth of the countries according to their GDP growth rates for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, and the projections for 2023.

The recovery process of many of the economies has been impacted by post–pandemic geo–political conflict between Russia and Ukraine, sky rocketed commodity prices, high inflation trajectory and synchronized move by the centrals banks in increasing the interest rates, said Saket Dalmia, President, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

World economic growth had recovered sharply in 2021 at 5.9% from a significant deceleration of (-) 3.2% in 2020, however, world economic growth again decelerated to 2.9% in 2022 and projected to decelerate further at 1.7% in 2023, said Saket Dalmia.

In 2023, among the Top 10 leading economies, 8 economies including United States, China, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Italy and Brazil, will perform below their GDP growth rates of pre pandemic level of 2019.

However, India and Japan have shown a significant resilience as both the economies are growing above the GDP growth level of 2019 during the period of 2021, 2022 and 2023 (projected).

India is a bright spot in the global ecosystem recovered significantly from (-) 6.6% GDP growth in 2020-21 to 8.7% in 2021-22 and 6.8% in 2022-23 with projected growth rate of 6 to 6.8% in FY 2023-24, said Saket Dalmia.

According to IMF data, India`s growth trajectory is significantly strong as economic growth will be above the 7% in 2021-2025. China will be growing much below at 5% as compared with India’s growth rate of 7% during 2021-2025, said Dalmia

India grew at 5.6% during the last 10 years period from 2013-2022, said Dalmia, he said.

Despite the several shocks, 68 economies such as India, Japan, South Africa, Norway, Mexico, Argentina, Greece, Kuwait, Jordan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia among others are growing consistently above the pre pandemic level of 2019 in the post pandemic period.

Going ahead, continued economic reforms in India would further strengthen the economic fundamentals of the country to maintain steady economic growth trajectory, said Saket Dalmia.

Strengthening of India’s connectivity with Global Value Chains (GVCs) will help to improve supply side bottlenecks and reduce costs of doing business, said Dalmia.

Enhanced competitiveness of the Indian economy will attract more and more investments and help to create more employment opportunities for the growing young population, said Dalmia.

However, industry needs a great hand holding in such a difficult environment caused by global economic uncertainties and volatile inflationary conditions, said Dalmia.

We need to focus more on the manufacturing sector as high cost of borrowings, high prices of raw materials have impacted the price – cost margins of the producers. Reduced cost of doing business such as easier compliances and a robust Single Window System will enhance ease of doing business in the country, said Dalmia.