Despite all the debate around the quality of India’s macroeconomic data, the International Monetary Fund said the country’s accounts data is not biased in one direction.
The quality of India’s macroeconomic data is “not bad” when compared with other emerging market economies, said Ranil Salgado, mission chief for India at the fund.
“We have actually had some of our statistical experts look at the national accounts data. Generally they find that for an emerging market, India is not bad. There are areas it needs to improve, but relative to other emerging markets it is not bad. And what we are fairly confident about is that there is no systematic bias in the numbers,” Salgado told BloombergQuint in an interview in Washington.
To improve the quality of its macroeconomic data, India needs to work on its price indices and measure its informal sector better, he said.
Talking about India’s growth, Salgado said the recent slowdown in India is largely cyclical led by environmental and regulatory uncertainty, slower rural income growth and issues in the financial sector.
