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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday met stakeholders from the financial sector and capital markets as part of her series pre-Budget consultations.
The meeting was also attended by Finance Secretary, DIPAM secretary, and secretaries of Department of Economic Affairs and Department of Financial Services, and Chief Economic Adviser to the Government of India. Today's was her seventh in the pre-budget series of meetings. The Finance Ministry conducts several pre-budget consultation meetings annually with experts, industry leaders, economists, and state officials. The formal exercise to prepare the annual Budget for the next financial year has already begun. Sitharaman has so far held a series of meetings with various stakeholders, including with MSMEs, farmers' associations, and economists. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also interacted with a group of eminent economists and thought leaders in preparation for the Union Budget 2025-26 at the NITI Aayog premises last week. As is the convention, the Budget for 2025-26 will be tabled on February 1, 2025. The 2025-26 Budget will mark Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's eighth. All eyes will be on the key announcements and the government's forward-looking economic guidance for the remainder of the Modi 3.0 tenure. This upcoming budget comes in the backdrop of weak GDP numbers and weak consumption in the economy. The Indian economy grew by 5.4 per cent in real terms in the July-September quarter of the current financial year 2024-25. The quarterly growth was quite lower than RBI's forecast of 7 per cent. In the April-June quarter too, India's GDP grew at a slower pace than was estimated by its central bank. The Reserve Bank in its latest monetary policy had cut India's growth forecast for 2024-25 to 6.6 per cent from 7.2 per cent. The Economic Survey tabled in Parliament earlier this year "conservatively" projected India's real GDP growth at 6.5-7 per cent for 2024-25, acknowledging that market expectations are higher. Real GDP growth is the reported economic growth adjusted for inflation. High frequency indicators for the third quarter of 2024- 25 (October-December) indicate that the Indian economy is recovering from the slowdown in momentum witnessed in July-September, driven by strong festival activity and a sustained upswing in rural demand, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had asserted in its monthly bulletin recently. India's GDP grew by an impressive 8.2 per cent during the financial year 2023-24, and continued to be the fastest-growing major economy. The economy grew by 7.2 per cent in 2022-23 and 8.7 per cent in 2021-22. (ANI)
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