Focus on infrastructure boosting India's economy: Piyush Goyal

Dec 01, 2023

New Delhi [India], December 2 : Massive investments, both from the government and from the private sector, directed towards infrastructure are boosting India's infrastructural capabilities and giving its economy a fillip, said Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry.
Minister Goyal was addressing the inaugural session of the '3rd India Debt Capital Market Summit 2023: Onwards and Upwards'.
Addressing the summit virtually, Goyal said the competitive source of financing is attracting investments from those who are looking for greater safety.
He said the Indian stock market is also hitting the USD four trillion mark for the first time, and India being among the top five global markets has huge opportunities.
He pointed out that the country is the fifth-largest economy in the world and the fastest-growing economy at 7.6 per cent, this July-September quarter.
"The world trusts India today," Goyal said, mentioning that the country stands at the cusp of a very bright future as a trusted partner of the world and as a vibrant democracy.
By 2047, when the country aims to be among the list of developed nations, Goyal said India will add USD 30 trillion to our USD 3.7 trillion.
Further in his address, Goyal said a resilient debt capital market will be the catalyst for innovation, entrepreneurship, and infrastructure development.
He noted that massive urbanisation will happen over the next few decades, even as Tier 2 cities are also going to become metropolitan cities.
He said that PM Modi was very focused on ease of doing business and reduction of compliance burden, decriminalising several laws, and removing some of the redundant laws from the statute book.
"All are aware that India was categorised as a fragile 5 economy. If you remember the headlines of that period, say, 3 or 4 years before 2014, Almost every month, we would wake up to a new scandal which would come out of the closet, a new uncertainty that would bog down economic growth," Goyal said.
"It was a holistic plan, which helped India double its foreign exchange reserves in the last 10 years," he said.
Goyal said that India has been able to increase exports of goods and services by almost 55 per cent, from 500 billion in 2021 to 776 billion in 2022-23.
He said that with two conflicts going on around the world, there is a prospect of recession in the developed economies. Still, he said, he is confident of growth in the export numbers, even in the current year 2023-24.