2014 is likely to be a year of adjustments for Indian economy, say experts

Limited partners or institutional investors which are into private equity are said to usually look at GDP numbers as their first investment protocol. At the recently concluded VCCircle India Limited Partners Summit 2014, eminent panellists discussed the 

macro-economic opportunity in India, assessing the good and bad pretty thoroughly. The panel moderated by Roopa Purushothaman - MD and head of research, Everstone Capital Advisors, brought out some interesting aspects on where we are headed in 2014. Following are some of the forward-looking observations made by the panelists: 

Saurabh Mukherjea -- CEO of Institutional Equities Business, Ambit Capital Pvt Ltd.

"The investment side in a way holds the key to the year ahead. We believe that we will see industrial growth rising from around 2 per cent in the current fiscal year to March 2014 to around 4 per cent in the year to March 2015. It is not a massive recovery in industrial growth but it's a turn in the industrial cycle wherein I think the bulk of the upside lies year ahead."

Indranil Pan -- chief economist at Kotak Mahindra Bank

"For the Indian economy and for the emerging market place, we are seeing some amount of turnaround that might be happening in the export cycle because the developed market space is doing relatively better. But I think there is still significant risk out there, in terms of re-balancing of those economies. So I would not want pre-Lehman type of growth to build in even for the developed markets and therefore for emerging markets."

Tushar Poddar – MD, chief economist at Goldman Sachs

"2014, in my view, is likely to be a year of adjustments in the Indian economy. There are at least three adjustments (inflation, fiscal side and balance sheet adjustments) that need to be made; 2014 is a year when we will hopefully see some progress on each of those. So as we look out into 2014, as long as we get progress in these adjustments, then the medium-term prospects could look very good. But if we try to cut corners and if we try to stimulate growth and expensive inflation or fiscal deficit and if we try to draw balance sheets where there is no enough space, then that could cause problems down the road. So, it is a cautious outlook for 2014."