India looks to create a cleaner and fairer economy
The Indian government’s attempt to create a cleaner and fairer economy have been boosted by the signing of a set of agreements with the 14-member IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity) bloc.
The agreements are designed to help facilitate development, access and deployment of clean energy and climate-friendly technologies; boost investment; strengthen measures around anti-corruption and tax transparency; and improve business environment.
In June in Singapore, 13 IPEF countries signed these agreements – Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the US, and Vietnam are members of the bloc.
“India signed and exchanged the first-of-its-kind agreements focused on Clean Economy, Fair Economy, and the IPEF Overarching arrangement under IPEF for prosperity,” the Indian commerce ministry said in a statement.
It said the agreement on clean economy is designed to accelerate efforts of IPEF partners towards energy security, GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions mitigation, developing innovative ways of reducing dependence on fossil fuel energy, promoting technical cooperation, capacity building, besides collaborating to facilitate development, access and deployment of clean energy and climate-friendly technologies.
It will also facilitate investments, project financing, joint collaborative projects, workforce development and technical assistance for industries.
“These activities will be undertaken through joint collaborative actions such as Cooperative Work Programmes, the IPEF Catalytic Capital Fund, the IPEF Accelerator,” the ministry said.
The agreement on fair economy intends to create a more transparent and predictable business environment; enhance efforts to prevent and combat corruption by strengthening anti-corruption frameworks; and support efforts to improve tax transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes between competent authorities.
“It focuses on enhancing information sharing among partners, facilitating asset recovery, and strengthening cross-border investigations and prosecutions. This will also support India’s efforts in fighting corruption, money laundering, and terror financing,” it said.
India has also signed an overarching IPEF agreement, which is an administrative pact to set up an oversight ministerial-level mechanism.
“This agreement seeks to establish a high-level political oversight framework at the ministerial level over the various individual IPEF agreements while setting general guidance and goals, and guiding Leaders' vision and mandate for IPEF,”
The 14-member IPEF bloc was launched jointly by the US and other partner countries of the Indo-Pacific region in May 2022. Together, they account for 40% of the world’s economic output and 28% of trade.
India predicted to hit 7% growth
India continues to outperform other major world economies, with the country predicted to record 7% GDP growth.
That’s the prediction of Deloitte South Asia CEO Romal Shetty, who is the youngest chief executive of a Big Four accounting and consultancy firm in India. He said that inflation is “reasonably under control”, referring to a pick-up in rural demand and improving vehicle sales.
“We believe that we would be in the 7%–7.1% range in terms of the growth [this fiscal year]. You have got the headwinds, the tailwinds... But the fact is, still India is in a better position, in spite of whatever is happening globally but we can’t say we’re decoupled from the world,” he said. However, he added that the geopolitical crisis in the Middle East and Ukraine and the slowdown in the western world will impact GDP growth.
According to Deloitte projections, growth is likely to be 6.7% in the next fiscal year (2025-26). The Indian economy grew 8.2% in the previous fiscal year – 2023-24.
In an interview with the Press Trust of India, Shetty said he expected the new government to continue with the economic reforms, including privatisation, at the same pace, saying there “is a tremendous push to get things done within the government departments”.
India – the world's fifth largest economy – is set to expand to $5 trillion and become the third largest within this decade, the Big Four firm predicted.
