India won’t exploit exchange rate as trade tool, says Modi
Taking a swipe at China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that India’s growth rate of over seven per cent was being achieved in a country that is also a vibrant democracy.
Speaking at the Advancing Asia conference here, he said India dispelled the myth that democracy and rapid economic growth could not go together.
India’s rapid economic growth, he said, was also very distinct in Asia, as the country had never tried to gain in trade at the expense of partners, never undervalued its exchange rate; it rather added to the world and Asian demand by running current account deficits. “We do not follow beggar-thy-neighbour macro-economic policies… We are good Asian and good global economic citizens, and a source of demand to our trading partners,” he said, without naming China, at the three-day conference organised by India and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF recently included China’s yuan into its reserve currency basket.
Amid global problems, Mr. Modi said, India was a haven of macro-economic stability. In a difficult external environment and despite a second successive year of weak rainfall, “we have increased our growth rate to 7.6 per cent, the highest among major economies in the world… We have improved our economic governance… Corruption and interference in the decisions of banks and regulators are now behind us.”
He said he laid his dream of a ‘Transformed India’ alongside the common dream of an Advanced Asia, an Asia where more than half of the global population can live with happiness and fulfilment.
India and the IMF also announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for establishing the South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Centre. It is expected to become the focal point for planning, coordinating, and implementing the IMF’s capacity-development activities in the region. This will include macroeconomic and fiscal management, monetary operations, financial sector regulation and supervision, and macroeconomic statistics.
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Source:Thehindu
Narendra Modi
