India Growth Likely Near 7% This Fiscal: Gita Gopinath

New Delhi: The Indian economy is expected to record around 7 per cent growth in the current fiscal, slightly higher than 6.6 per cent projected by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in October, said Gita Gopinath, former chief economist of the Washington-based International Monetary Fund.

The IMF in October, however, revised upwards India’s GDP growth forecast for the current fiscal to 6.6 per cent compared to its earlier estimate of 6.4 per cent on the back of strong growth, offsetting the impact of US tariffs on Indian shipments. “The IMF made its projection for India's growth before the National Statistical Office (NSO) came out with its July-September quarter growth rate of 8.2 per cent,” Gopinath said while speaking at Times Network's India Economic Conclave 2025.

“I would say that the IMF number (India's growth projection) was 6.6 per cent that came out in October, but their forecast for the second quarter of the current fiscal, in terms of what the growth would be, was much lower than what it turned out to be at over 8 per cent. Just doing math, I would expect that India's GDP growth would go up close to 7 per cent,” she said.

Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India raised the GDP growth projection to 7.3 per cent for the current fiscal from its earlier estimate of 6.8 per cent, following robust economic performance in the July-September quarter. The GDP registered a six-quarter high growth of 8.2 per cent in Q2 of 2025-26, underpinned by resilient domestic demand amidst global trade and policy uncertainties.