India, US are two engines of growth amid bleak global scenario: Kaushik Basu

In this bleak global scenario, the US among the rich economies and India among the emerging economies are the two engines of growth, World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu said.

Hyderabad: World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu has said amidst sluggish global growth, the US and India are two engines of growth with India anticipated to be among the fastest growing major economies in the world.

Addressing the 98th annual conference of the Indian Economic Association (IEA) here, Basu said on Sunday, “This is a very critical time to have the conference on economy. Global growth is sluggish. The world economy is expected to grow barely by 2.5 per cent.”

He noted that Russia is in recession and its GDP is actually shrinking by about 4 per cent. Among the BRICS nations, only China and India are growing around and below 7 per cent, while Brazil’s GDP is declining by about 3.5 per cent and South Africa is barely growing.

“In this bleak scenario, the US among the rich economies and India among the emerging economies are the two engines of global growth,” he said, adding, “In both 2015 and 2016, we expect India to be the fastest growing country among the major economies in the world.”

“I don’t think this has happened before since we began measuring and estimating GDP data. All this puts special responsibility on India and there is no room for complacency,” Basu said.

“There is a slowdown in global trade going on and this would have an adverse impact on India. There is political conflict in the Middle East and a huge refugee problem that can have impact on us,” he said stressing on the need to bring analysis, research and professionalism to steer the economy in these risky times.