Industry, govt should jointly strategise for economic growth: Ficci

Vadodara: The federation of chambers of commerce and industry (Ficci) has called for a joint meeting between the industries and the government to chalk out a strategy balancing expenditure, and boosting economic growth.

Ficci president Rashesh Shah indicated that the economy is on a recovery path with reforms measures, while Indian rupee is weakening and inflationary pressure going up while rising oil prices are again posing a high risk to India's economic growth trajectory.

Also, next year is important as the Loksabha polls are scheduled. "Under such circumstances,it is necessary to hold a joint meeting between the industries and government to chalk out strategy for meeting the situation on the economic front," Shah said.

Shah was in the city to mark the centenary year celebrations of thecity-based the Federation of Gujarat Industries (earlier known as the federation of gujarat mills and industries).

He said the rising crude prices coupled with weaker rupee with cascading impact on inflation pose a big challenge for the Indian macro picture and ironically, there is little that can be done in the short-term.

Shahhowever,observed that the devalued rupee has benefited exporting units from the country, and hopes that the rupee and petroleum fuel would soon stabilise.

"Unless swift action is taken to address the situation, the economic growth will head towards a speed-breaker. Amongst the most immediate actions that can be taken by the government is to bring down the excise duty on fuel," Shah added.

He lamented that demonetisation and GST have affected the small and medium scale units leading to the closure of large number of them while big units managed to escape the impact.

He also admitted that agriculture growth has to be 12 percent in order to double farmers' income by 2022. Currently, it is at 4 percent, while there are 25 crore farmers whose income is much less at present.