The Economic Survey 2017-18, was tabled in the Parliament on January 29, 2018, by
Mr Arun Jaitley, Union Minister for Finance, Government of India.
The Survey forecasts a growth rate of 7 to 7.5 per cent for FY19,
as compared to the expected growth rate of 6.75 per cent in FY18.
Key Highlights:
Fiscal Deficit:
- 3.2% of GDP for 2017-18.
- Revenue and fiscal deficits of states as a percentage of corresponding budget estimates is lower in the current year as compared to the previous year.
GDP Growth:
- Expected to be between 6.5 and 6.75 per cent in 2017-18.
- GVA growth at basic prices is expected to be 6.1 per cent in 2017-18
Inflation:
- Average retail inflation, measured by Consumer Price Index (CPI), in 2017-18 (April–December) seen at 3.3%.
- Average Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation, in 2017-18 (April–December) seen at 2.9% from 1.7% in 2016-17.
Monetary policy:
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cut the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6.0 per cent in August 2017.
External Sector:
- The current account deficit has declined to reach about 1.8% of GDP in the first half of FY2018.
- During April-December 2017, trade deficit increased by 46.4% over corresponding period of previous year.
- During April-December 2017, exports grew 12.1%, while imports increased by 21.8%.
- Private transfer receipts, most of which is composed of remittances from Indians working abroad, increased by 10% in first half of 2017-18.
Performance of key sectors:
Agriculture and food management:
- The growth rate in Gross Value Added (GVA) by the agriculture and allied sectors is estimated to be 4.9% for 2016-17, as per provisional estimates.
Industries, corporate and infrastructure sector:
- Growth rate in the Gross Value Added (GVA) by the industrial sector was 5.6% in 2016-17 and 5.8% in the second quarter of 2017-18.
- The eight core infrastructure supportive industries, viz. coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizers, steel, cement and electricity that have a total weight of nearly 40 per cent in the IIP, registered a cumulative growth of 3.9% during April-November 2017.
- As of September 2017, India had 115,530 km of national highways, 176,166 km of state highways and 53,26,166 km of other roads. Under the new umbrella program ‘Bharatmala Pariyojana’ the government is aiming holistic development of highways in the country.
Services sector:
- The services sector is projected to grow at 8.3%in 2017-18, as against 7.7% in 2016-17.
- As per World Trade Organisation (WTO) data, India’s share in the exports of commercial services in the world increased to 3.4% in 2016 from 3.3%in 2015.
- In terms of growth in tourism sector, between January-December 2017, Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) were 10.2 million with a growth of 15.6% and foreign exchange earnings (FEE) were at US$ 27.7 billion with a growth of 20.8%.
Public Finance:
- The growth in non-debt receipts at 4.58% during April-November 2017 as against the growth rate of 25.8% in the previous year.
Ease of Doing Business in India:
- Various reforms taken by the Government of India have led to increase in India’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index from 130 in 2017 to 100 in 2018.
- India’s ranking in the taxation and insolvency parameters improved by 53 and 33 spots, respectively, on the back of administrative reforms undertaken by the Government of India in the areas of taxation and passage of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016.
- To improve the ease of doing business in the country, the government has taken various initiatives to improve contract enforcement. Over 1,000 redundant legislations have been scrapped.
- The National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) is being expanded under which every high court in the country will be digitized very soon. The same was recognized in the rankings by the World Bank.
GST data and the Indian Economy:
- The number of indirect taxpayers in the country witnessed growth of 50% to 9.8 million unique GST registrants, as of December 2017.
- India’s internal trade in goods and services (excluding non-GST goods and services) at 60% is even higher than that estimated in last year’s economic survey.
- Non-agricultural workforce in the formal sector in India is considerably greater than previously held beliefs about the size of formal sector non-farm payroll. Estimates, on the basis of enterprise-based definition of employment, imply that nearly 53% of non-agricultural workforce is in the formal sector.
Science, Research and Technology
- Public expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP has remained constant between 0.6-0.7% over the past two decades; however in value terms, the gross expenditure on R&D has increased at a CAGR of 13.03 per cent from Rs.24,117 crore (US$ 3.8 billion) in 2004-05 to Rs.104,864 crore (US$ 16.5 billion) in 2016-17.
- The number of students enrolled in PhD programs in India has increased over the years, with 126,451 PhD enrolments in 2015-16.
- The number of annual publications in India grew 14% between 2009-14, which increased India’s share in global publications from 3.1% in 2009 to 4.4% in 2014.
- India was ranked 13 in 2017 by Nature Index, which publishes tables based on counts of high-quality research outputs based on natural sciences in the previous year.
- As per WIPO, India’s Patent Filing Office is the 7th largest in the world with 45,658 registered patents as of 2015.
- About 200,000 patents were pending for examination as there were only 132 patent examiners as of 2016-17; however the government has hired 450 patent examiners and created an expedited filing system for Indian residents in 2017, which will improve the existing patent system.
- The government has chosen few missions for their strategic importance and potential for societal impact such as National Mission on Dark Matter, National Mission on Genomics, National Mission on Energy Storage Systems, National Mission on Mathematics, National Mission on Cyber Physical Systems, and National Mission on Agriculture.
