Finance Minister Sitharaman holds pre-budget consultation with economists

New Delhi [India], Dec 20 (ANI): Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday held a meeting with some leading economists here as a part of her consultations for the Union Budget 2020-21.
The main focus areas of the discussions included steps needed to achieve USD 5 trillion economy, job-oriented growth with a focus on manufacturing and services, transparency of fiscal arithmetic, monetary transmission, government's fiscal prudence and fiscal stimulus, the revival of NBFCs and inflation targeting.
A Finance Ministry release said the economists were optimistic about the India growth story and put forward ways through which India can achieve the goal of $5 trillion economy.
Among the suggestions made was attracting more investment, streamlining policy matters and faster resolution of policy issues, fiscal management, reforms in the power sector, focus on long-term reforms, simplification of GST, Direct Tax Code reforms, securing supply chains for economy, land and labour reforms, enhancing rural demand and improving oversight of financial markets.
There were suggestions for reforms in the small savings rate and boosting agricultural exports.
The participants included Neelkanth Mishra, Credit Suisse; Rathin Roy, NIFP; Sunil Jain, Financial Express; Shekhar Shah, NCAER; Arvind Virmani, economist; Surjit S Bhalla, O(X)US Investment; Abheek Barua, HDFC Bank; Soumya Kanti Ghosh, State Bank of India; Ajit Mishra, Institute of Economic Growth; Ajit Ranade, Aditya Birla Group; Prasanna Tantri, Indian School of Business; Rahul Bajoria, Barclays Investment Bank, Suvodeep Rakshit, Kotak Securities Ltd and Sachin Chaturvedi, Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS). (ANI)