Global Recession Inevitable, Is India Ready?

While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut down the growth forecast for India for the financial year 2022-23, it also warned the big economies across the world of recession next year, noting the further slowdown in growth. For India, the slashed growth numbers are in total contrast to what was given out by the IMF in July this year, which showed the growth forecast as 7.4%. Several reasons have been given out for the global slowdown of growth and that continues to remain the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing war between Russia-Ukraine, and climate change.

For India too, the IMF has cited the Ukraine war, record-high inﬂation and eﬀects of the pandemic as key reasons for the slowdown and despite that, it is expecting inﬂation in India to come down during the financial year 2023-24, but for the biggest economies such as USA, China, and Euro-Zone the worst, as per the IMF, is yet to come. Concerning India, it was already expected that there would be a cut on the growth rate, as a few days back, the World Bank, too, downgraded the growth numbers and kept it at 6.5% for the Financial Year 2022-23, which is a drop of 1% from what it has projected in its report in June 2022.

As of now, things do not seem to be going in a good direction, if we talk of the growth scenario of the country which is further going to witness a dent with major economies plunging into a possible yearlong economic recession. Even though the country emerged well out of the COVID-19 effects and did quite well in stabilizing the economy, now the lingering effects of the pandemic, coupled with repercussions of the Russia-Ukraine war—which are affecting the global economy—are also having enormous effects on the growth and stability of the Indian economy and that has been the reason, we live in the times where the inflation is all-time high with just slight up and down.

Now that we are looking ahead towards the global recession, the same will surely affect the Indian economy further, ensuring more slowdown even though IMF termed India as relatively a bright spot; it is where the ultimate solution comes in—the idea of Atmanirhbhar Bharat. It has been the key to making the country’s economy shock-proof and functioning as an independent entity whose parameters remain largely dependent on the conditions on the home turf. There is a need for boosting the Atmanirhbhar Bharat line of action in the country to ensure that India’s economy becomes more stable and stays immune to the external factors—which are guiding the trajectory of even the major economies in the world—at the same time, a considerable cut on the imports also should remain a key focus area of the Government which will be achieved in the long run with the effective implementation and progress of the idea of ‘Atmanirhbhar Bharat’ which envisions to see India becoming self-reliant in every sphere.