RBI's Move Will Help Contain Inflation: Sanjiv Bajaj

New Delhi: India's GDP by next financial year will grow between 7.4 percent to 8.2 percent, as per the projection of the new President of Confederation of Indian Industry's (CII). At his maiden press conference as the association's president, Sanjiv Bajaj supported RBI's latest decision to hike the repo rates as it may help contain inflation.

The Chairman and Managing Director of Bajaj Finserv also said that positive momentum in exports, private investments, government infrastructure push, and strong monsoon enabling consumption and job creation are some of the key factors for the GDP growth. While speaking to the media and fellow industry members, the CII President presented its association's latest vision, India @100, wherein it is expected India's GDP to touch $40 trillion by the year 2047.

While making an observation on the cause of rise in inflation, Bajaj said, "RBI has already started the cycle of taking interest rates up and we should expect interest rates to continue moving up in the coming year. We would expect from RBI a clear direction to how they are going to address interest rates. Hopefully in the next monetary policy review we should be able to hear from them something to that extent."

He explained that to unlock the growth potential of the economy, global headwinds and inflation will have to be countered with robust policy reforms and both domestic and external sector reforms. Sanjiv Bajaj was officially chosen as the President Elect by the CII committee on May 12. He has succeeded T.V. Narendran, CEO and Managing Director of Tata Steel Limited who was the association's president from 2021-22.

Under the theme of India@100, Bajaj said that segments such as automobiles are predicted to surpass USD 2 trillion in revenue and USD 360 billion in exports, and automobile components may surpass USD 1 trillion in revenue and USD 300 billion in exports. Bajaj anticipates that the electronics industry may reach USD2 trillion in size and USD 1 trillion in exports.

While praising the various PLI schemes rolled out by the central government in the past years, Bajaj said PLI schemes are expected to push the manufacturing sector's contribution in gross value addition to 27 percent by FY 2048. Services industry, too, will witness its share rising from 53 percent to 55 percent in the terminal year, the CII President has said.