ECONOMY MAY TAKE 12 YEARS TO OVERCOME LOSSES: RBI

The Indian economy is likely to take over 12 years to overcome the COVID-19 losses, according to a report released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday.

In its report on ‘currency and finance for the year 2021-22’, the RBI said, the pandemic is a watershed moment and the ongoing structural changes catalysed by the pandemic can potentially alter the growth trajectory in the medium-term. “Sustained thrust on capital expenditure by the government, push to digitalisation and growing opportunities for new investment in areas like e-commerce, start-ups, renewables and supply chain logistics could in turn, contribute to step up the trend growth while closing the formal-informal gap in the economy,” the report noted.

The RBI further noted in the report, the pre-COVID trend growth rate works out to 6.6 per cent (CAGR for 2012-13 to 2019-20) and excluding the slowdown years it works out to 7.1 per cent (CAGR for 2012-13 to 2016-17).

“Taking the actual growth rate of (-) 6.6 per cent for 2020-21, 8.9 per cent for 2021-22 and assuming growth rate of 7.2 per cent for 2022-23, and 7.5 per cent beyond that, India is expected to overcome COVID-19 losses in 2034-35,” the report said.

The output losses for individual years have been worked out to Rs 19.1 lakh crore, Rs 17.1 lakh crore and Rs 16.4 lakh crore for 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively.

The Reserve Bank of India released the Report on Currency and Finance (RCF).