The solution to every problem can be found only if the problem is first decoded till the first principle. India’s economic slowdown should be treated and decoded the same way. The first thing that needs to be identified is whether the current slowdown in the economy is a cyclical slowdown or a structural slowdown. Cyclical slowdown is one that is characterized as a part of the business cycle, going through a trough which will eventually be followed by a recovery and peak. In gist, it is a short-term problem which can be solved through government’s fiscal and monetary policy. However, what the country is witnessing today is a structural slowdown and in order to garner a remedy for the situation, there needs to be a better understanding of the problem and there after damage control.
India’s growth story has always been driven by consumption. In terms of the components of GDP- government expenditure has been whooping for the economy, however government expenditure forms only around 10% of the GDP. Additionally, the fiscal deficit of the government raises concerns about what extent can the government afford to stretch the deficit to, especially with staggering tax collections. The current fiscal deficit stands at 7.5%, which is a notch higher than all the developing countries, barring Pakistan. Investments have been stalling, even after the corporate tax rate cuts. The reason is that if there is a weak consumption demand, why will the businesses invest even despite the incentives? The consumption demand, which is the most worrying concern, ironically forms around 60% or more of the GDP today. In such a situation, any policies, incentives or break throughs will not revive the economy until and unless there is a boost or rather revival of the consumption story of India. The current situation is worse than the 1991 fiasco, as during that time even though the government lacked the forex reserves, the consumption demand was strong. Today the government has ample forex reserves, but the main growth driver of the country has taken a backseat.
The demand can be broken down into urban demand and rural demand. FMCG sector of India, which is generally known for being the resilient and safe sector for the economy has been under trouble, which clearly highlights the gravity of the situation. There were times when the rural segment used to contribute 1.5times the urban segment for this sector. However, during the past few quarters the rural contribution has fallen to the level of urban contribution, and has dipped even more. Currently, the rural FMCG sales is growing by 5.2% and the urban sales is growing by 7.4%
One of the reasons for the above being, India is divided into an organized and unorganized sector. While the organized sector contributes two-third of the GDP, the unorganized sector contributes the rest, and certainly cannot be avoided. The informal sector is responsible for more than 80% of the job creation in the country, according to economists. The implementation of GST was done with the intent of formalizing the country. There has been interestingly a pattern observed, big firms in the industry that competed with a large portion of informal firms benefitted immediately after implementation of GST. The informal firms bore the compliance costs, many informal firms either shut down or witnessed a large drop in market share. The same firms which benefitted post GST, have now witnessed a decline in sales-reasons being slump in demand arising out of losses of job and high level of unemployment in the informal sector. For instance, biggies like Britannia, Marico first witnessed a plunge post demonetization. They again picked up post GST, due to the lessening of rivalry by their informal counterparts and now again a slowdown, due to their stressed counterparts.
Additionally, there is an anomaly in the consumption behaviour of Indian consumers. According to the Consumption Expenditure Survey (CES), the expenditure compared between FY 12 and FY 19 indicates that the spending on durables, clothing, footwear, health, travel, entertainment and other miscellaneous good & services has actually increased. However, sectors like automobile and housing have witnessed a haunting slowdown. The anomaly is due to the lack of customer confidence. Customers do not want to spend on items requiring long term commitment in terms of maintenance and payments as they are not confident about their future income and revival of the economy. Hence, segments especially like travel and entertainment have seen robust growth figures as they are one-time expenditures for the customers. Additionally, events like big billion days witnessed e-tailors booking revenues worth $ 3 billion, plus 50% increase in terms of new customers for giants like Flipkart (mainly tier 2 and tier 3 cities). Major retail lending retail products, such as personal loans and credit cards continue to witness strong growth, though the pace may have decelerated. This brings us to the fact that slowdown does not necessarily showcase the lack of disposable income in the hands of urban middle class. These indicators highlight that there is sentiment issue, customers are still spending a robust amount of income in certain segments-segments which require one-time short-term low-ticket size expenditure, however not on those segments which are required to boost the economy. RBI’s consumer confidence survey for November booked the lowest figure since its implementation back in 2010. The index stood at 85.7, which is even lower than the number observed in September 2013, where the country faced a BOP crisis. A reading below 100 denotes pessimism in the economy.
Budget 2020. The budget 2020 is imperative to bring the country out of a turmoil. There is a consensus view that the budget is likely to bring reforms which will stimulate demand and confidence of revival in the mind of Indian consumers:
With the corporate tax down to 25%, the next expected move of the government is a reduction in the income tax slab to leave more money in the hands of consumer. The current exemption of no tax for income up Rs. 2.5 lakh is expected to be increased to Rs. 5 lakhs. Slab of 5-10 lakh subject to a tax rate of 10% (20% currently), 10-20 lakh subject to a tax rate of 20% (30% currently) and above 20 lakhs subject to a tax rate of 30%. Next is increasing the deduction limit under section 80C from current Rs. 150000 to Rs. 250000. In order to revive investment and promote the housing sector, deduction for housing loan interest for self-occupied property is expected to increase from current Rs. 2,00,000 to Rs. 3,00,000. The rural economy needs to be given a priority; hence the budget should be focusing on bolstering the NREGA programme and funding rural road construction.
While all this may or may not work for the country, certain imperative deep-rooted measures need to be addressed to bring a long-term solution the country. One of the main forces believed to be positively linked to the consumption in an economy is the demographic dividend. India is believed to be the fastest growing country and unanimously agreed that it will reap the benefits of a “large working-class population” in the coming years. While there is no doubt of authenticity in the statement, what we fail to realize is that the above statement will materialize only when the current young population is provided with an environment of quality education and up scaling of skills. India is much behind this aim. Reforms in education and healthcare will pave the path for economic development in India. Successful Asian economies like China, Japan, South Korea, first focused on bringing reforms in the agriculture sector by promoting full-scale efficiency. Similarly, India should focus on reforms in agriculture in terms of access to seeds, technology, power and finance. They should look for ways to improve connectivity and facilitate easier leasing of land. Focus on such areas would not only solve the current problems but also cater to the problems the country has been facing for years but have been left unaddressed.
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