IMF revises India’s FY24 growth forecast to 6.3%

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has raised India’s economic growth forecast for the current fiscal year to 6.3% from an earlier projection of 6.1%. 

“Growth in India is projected to remain strong, at 6.3% in fiscal years 2023 and 2024, with an upward revision of 0.2 percentage points for 2023, reflecting stronger-than-expected consumption during April-June,” the IMF said in its October 2023 World Economic Outlook (WEO) report. 

The Reserve Bank of India has projected GDP growth in the current fiscal year at 6.5%.

For FY25, the IMF has maintained its forecast from the April and July reports, saying that India will continue to grow at 6.3%. 

During a press briefing, Pierre‑Olivier Gourinchas, the director of the IMF’s research department, called India’s growth forecast a “robust growth number” and added that the country is one of the large emerging economies that has been “doing better than expected”. 

“It has been doing better for a while now. And we’ve mentioned that India is, in fact, one of the growth engines in the world economy at this point,” Gourinchas said.  

The IMF has also revised inflation in the current financial year to 5.5%, which it said was related to increased food prices in the country.

The agency, however, noted that 5.5% inflation is well within that target range of 2 to 6 percent. 

Global growth 

Global growth is forecast to slow from 3.5% in 2022 to 3.0% in 2023 and 2.9% in 2024, according to the report. 

Growth in emerging and developing Asia is projected to rise from 4.5% in 2022 to 5.2% in 2023, then to decline to 4.8% in 2024, the IMF report said. The revision reflects a lower forecast for China, which is revised downward by 0.2 percentage point for 2023 and by 0.3 percentage point for 2024 to growth of 5.0% in 2023 and 4.2% in 2024, the report added. 

It attributed the decline to a property market crisis and lower investment in China.