India's Economy Projected to Grow 7% in 2024-25: CEA

New Delhi, Jul 22 (PTI) Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Monday said a 7 per cent GDP growth rate, the upper end of the projection made in the Economic Survey, is doable depending on monsoon and global financial risks.

The Economic Survey projected India's GDP to grow between 6.5 per cent and 7 per cent in 2024-25, down from a high of 8.2 per cent in the preceding financial year.

"We are not pessimistic. We actually are optimistic about growth. We are also mindful of the challenges with regard to progress of monsoon," he said.

The Economic Survey has projected a prudent growth rate of 6.5-7 per cent for the current financial year, and much will depend upon the progress of the monsoon, he said while addressing reporters here after the tabling of the Economic Survey 2023-24 in Parliament by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

The Economic Survey has been prepared by a team of economists led by Nageswaran. Some analysts have termed the growth projection in the Survey as conservative.

"We want to be prudent in projecting growth rate, that is why we have projected the country's economic growth at 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent in FY24," he said.

"While 7 per cent is eminently doable, there are some risk factors given the way the monsoon has shaped up and financial market risks are rising in the developed world with the spillover effects on India, and also the global geopolitics environment," he said.

According to him, there is momentum in the economy and private capital expenditure has picked up. India's external debt ratio is much lower compared to other emerging economies, the CEA said.

Nageswaran also said inflationary pressure is under control, and core inflation is running well below 4 per cent. He also noted that India needs to create 80 lakh jobs per annum.

The CEA said the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme is beginning to deliver very handsomely in key areas. PLIs have been able to attract investment of Rs 1.28 lakh crore and generated 80 lakh jobs.

Despite securing a good rating on its green bond framework, he said, Indian sovereign green bonds have hardly received any ‘greenium' from private investors.

"It is more a ‘wall of capital' than a ‘flood of capital' that is waiting to fund energy transition in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). It just isn't mobile. All of these together have severely hampered the flow of finance for green transition projects," he said.

The government undertook the issue of sovereign green bonds amounting to Rs 16,000 crore in January-February 2023 to raise proceeds for public sector projects that would contribute to the efforts to reduce the intensity of the economy's emissions, followed by Rs 20,000 crore raised through sovereign green bonds in October-December 2023.