Expect double-digit, 11% plus growth in coming year: Jaishankar

New Delhi: Minister of external affairs Dr S Jaishankar said on Saturday the country expects to witness growth in double digits in the next fiscal year. “Our expectation is that we will get double-digit 11% plus growth in the coming year. The issue for us is between corona recovery and economic recovery. What is the future direction we should be going? This time, it was clearly indicated by the budget,” he told ANI. 

In her budget speech on February 1, Union finance minister Sitharaman said that the fiscal deficit for the current financial year is pegged at 9.5% and that there will be a borrowing of ₹80,000 crore in the next two months. She added that the fiscal deficit in 2021-22 is expected to be 6.8% of the GDP and the borrowing from the market next year will be ₹12 lakh crore. She also set a target of fiscal deficit less than 4.5% of GDP in 2025-26.

Speaking to reporters in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada, Jaishankar said following the coronavirus pandemic, health has become one of the most important concerns, which he said, is also reflected in the budget presented by Sitharaman earlier this week. “India after corona is very different from before. For us today, health and wellbeing have become important and that is the reason why in the budget, the government has given such a big priority to the health and wellbeing sector,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. 

Jaishankar also addressed the border standoff with China in the Ladakh area during his interaction with the media. He said that Indian military commanders have held nine rounds of talks with their Chinese counterparts during the past one year and they will continue in future. 

The minister had earlier made it clear that the only way forward for the two countries is for their armies to go back to their permanent bases along the 1597-km Line of Actual Control (LAC) in east Ladakh as they existed in April 2020.

Jaishankar said three so-called “mutuals” – mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interests – are determining factors for the bilateral relationship and cannot be brushed aside as the two countries try to resolve the nine-month-long standoff on the LAC.