Economic Survey 2018 Highlights: Forex earnings from tourism jump 20.8% in 2017

5:54 On tourism sector, the Economic Survey noted that to promote tourism, the country celebrated 'Paryatan Parv' from October 5 to 25, 2017 with three main components -- Dekho Apna Desh, Tourism for All, Tourism and Governance.

5:15 The Economic Survey 2018 said that foreign exchange earnings from tourism sector jumped 20.8 percent to USD 27.7 billion in 2017, aided by the initiatives such as ‘Atithi Devo Bhava’ ('The guest is equivalent to God') taken by the government for the sector.

4:38 According to the Economic Survey 2018, if per capita income in India grows at 6.5 percent per year, India would reach upper-middle income status by the mid-to-late 2020s.

4:01 The annual rate of increase in immunisation coverage has gone up from one to 6.7 percent benefiting children in far-flung and tribal areas, President Ram Nath Kovind said today.

3:59 The Economic Survey 2018 said that the telecom sector is going through stress due to a huge debt pile, tariff war and irrational spectrum costs and called for policy measures to minimise over-bidding of assets during auctions.

3:56 Indian firms mopped up over Rs 70,000 crore through primary markets during April-November of the current fiscal, a surge of 45 per cent from the year-ago period, according to the Economic Survey 2017-18.

3:52 The share of Indian Railways in freight movement has been witnessing a drop over a period of time, mainly on account of non-competitive tariff structure, the Economic Survey said.

While the passenger fare had remained more or less flat, the freight fare has gone up sharply over the years, it said.

3:47 India has become a better place for doing business following the government's initiatives such as Goods and Services Tax (GST) and insolvency and bankruptcy code, the Economic Survey said.

3:38 Student Classroom Ratio (SCR) and Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) of the government-run schools have witnessed 'significant progress', the Economic Survey said.

Besides, Gender Parity Index (GPI) has also improved "substantially" at primary and secondary levels by increasing enrolment of girls, although in higher education, gender disparities still prevail.

3:34 India will need about USD 4.5 trillion in the next 25 years for infrastructure development, of which it will be able to garner about USD 3.9 trillion, the Economic Survey said.

"The Global Infrastructure Outlook reflects that rising income levels and economic prosperity is likely to further drive demand for infrastructure investment in India over the next 25 years,” the survey said.

3:29 One or two states to introduce universal basic income within 2 years, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said today.

3:25 The share of information and communication technology (ICT) in India's services exports "declined marginally" between 2006 and 2016, contrary to the trend in nations like China, Brazil, Russia and the Philippines, indicating rising competition for India from such countries, the Economic Survey said.

3:23 Bollywood actor Sunny Deol's iconic dialogue 'tarikh-par-tarikh' (dates after dates) has been used in the Economic Survey 2017-18 to highlight frequent delays in the judicial process.

The survey called for coordinated action between government and the judiciary to address the delays and boost economic activity.

3:19 The demonetisation of high value currency notes in November 2016 resulted in widening of taxpayers' base and rise in household savings, the Economic Survey said.

The pre-budget survey further said policy priorities over the short term focused on reviving investments by mobilizing savings and encouraging the conversion of gold into financial savings.

3:13 President Ram Nath Kovind today said Railways remained the main mode of transport in the country, which was why investment in the sector was continuously being enhanced.

In his maiden address to the joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament, Kovind said the country needed to modernise and develop the capacity of the national transporter.

3:11 There is 'feminisation' of agriculture sector because of growing migration of men from rural to urban areas, the Economic Survey said, while calling for gender-specific interventions to support them.

Women play a significant and crucial role in agricultural development and allied fields "is a fact long taken for granted," the Survey observed.

2:49 The pink-coloured Economic Survey document tabled by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament today recommended that India must confront the societal metapreference for a son, observing that the adverse sex ratio of females to males has led to 63 million "missing" women.

The colour of this year's survey cover was chosen as a symbol of support for the growing movement to end violence against women, which spans continents.

2:47 Speaking about pending commercial litigation in the judicial system, the Economic Survey has called for coordinated action between the government and the judiciary, saying it will help improve ease of doing business and boost economic activity.

2:42 The implementation of GST is slated to be beneficial for the domestic logistics sector as the industry, roughly worth USD 160 billion at the moment, will touch USD 215 billion in the next two years, the Economic Survey said.

2:38 A slew of measures adopted by the government helped steel exports grow by 53 percent to 7.6 million tonnes during April-December, the Economic Survey said.

2:36 Climate change could adversely affect farmers income by up to 20-25 percent in the medium term, the Economic Survey warned and suggested the need for "dramatic" improvement in irrigation, use of new technologies and better targeting of power and fertiliser subsidies.

2:33 The Economic Survey has said that the child and maternal malnutrition continues to be the most challenging risk factor for health loss in India.

The Survey has listed air pollution, dietary risks, high blood pressure and diabetes as some of the other key health risk factors India is facing.

It has also noted however that there has been significant improvement in the health status of individual in the country as life expectancy at birth has increased by approximately 10 years from 1990 to 2015.

2:17 An ecosystem for the new insolvency and bankruptcy process that took shape in 2017-18 is being used actively to resolve the bad loan problem in the banking sector, Economic Survey said.

"A major factor behind the effectiveness of the new Code has been the adjudication by the Judiciary. The Code prescribes strict time limits for various procedures under it," said the Economic Survey.

2:13 The Economic Survey said that average retail inflation had declined to a six-year low of 3.3 percent in FY18, and that the economy was moving towards a more stable price regime.

2:05 It was found that small firms wanted to come under the GST net because they wanted to buy from large corporations. Nearly 68 percent of all their purchases came from medium or large-sized registered companies, thereby giving them a chance to secure input tax credits on their purchases.

2:06 The Survey also found that contrary to popular belief before GST was introduced, more than half the transactions in companies that are below the threshold are from the B2C segment. "This suggests that there are, in fact, other motivations for participation, beyond simply being a supplier to larger companies," it said.

2:02 The Survey found that smaller registered companies were equally involved in selling to both consumers and businesses, whereas medium and large-sized companies were more involved in B2B operations than B2C.

1:59 "Unsurprisingly, the data show that the distribution of turnover is very skewed. The registered below-threshold firms account for 32 percent of total firms but less than 1 percent of total turnover, while the largest account for less than 1 percent of firms but 66 percent of turnover, and 54 percent of total tax liability," the Economic Survey said.

1:56 Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian has said that manufacturing export grew at 11 percent and that temporary challenges are receding.

1:52 Pointing out that India's growth had been accelerating in 2016, when other countries were decelerating, the Economic Survey said that this trend quickly changed to the exact opposite for a period of 4-6 quarters towards the end of 2016 and the first half of 2017. "The world economy embarked on a synchronous recovery, but India’s GDP growth—and indeed a number of other indicators such as industrial production, credit, and investment—decelerated," the Survey said.

1:48 "It is true that the share of Maharashtra’s and Gujarat’s tax base under the GST is lower than their share of manufacturing. But because these two states also have a significant presence in services, their tax base share remains in line with their share of GSDP," the Economic Survey said.

1:45 "One of the key elements to look out for is net exports. There has been a surge in imports, and if it continues it could drag the overall growth. We believe that government will go back to the fiscal consolidation so the target for next year will be close to 3.2 percent (of GDP). This was also the target for this year and even though we are unlikely to achieve it this time, it is a realistic target for 2018/19," Gaurav Dua, Research Head, Sharekhan, told Reuters.

1:41 In the run-up to the launch of GST, a lot of talk was focused on the overall size of the taxpayer base. The Revenue Neutral Rate (RNR) committee estimated the base to be Rs 68.8 lakh crore and the GST Council had estimated the base to be Rs 65.8 lakh crore. The survey found that the current base is between Rs 65 lakh crore and Rs 70 lakh crore, similar to the two estimates.

"Based on the average collections in the first few months, the implied weighted average collection rate (incidence) is about 15.6 percent. So, as estimated by the RNR committee, the single tax rate that would preserve revenue neutrality is between 15 to 16 percent," the Economic Survey said.

1:35 "Maharashtra, UP, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat are the states with the greatest number of GST registrants. UP and West Bengal have seen large increases in the number of tax registrants compared to the old tax regime," the Economic Survey said.

1:27 The Survey found that despite there being a marked anxiety in the run-up to the introduction of GST about the tax base shifting largely to consuming states, it is still manufacturing states that account for the largest tax bases.

1:24 "One of the many benefits of the GST was the voluntary compliance it would elicit. A few numbers highlight this phenomenon. There are about 1.7 million registrants who were below the threshold limit (and hence not obliged to register) who nevertheless chose to do so," the Economic Survey said. It further found that of the total estimated 71 million non-agriculture enterprises in the country, around 13 percent are registered on the GST network.

1:22 "The profile of new filers is interesting. Of their total turnover, business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions account for only 17 percent of the total. The bulk of transactions are business-tobusiness (B2B) and exports, which account for 30-34 percent apiece," the Economic Survey said.

1:20 The size of the formal sector, defined in the Survey as as being either in the social security or GST net, accounted for 13 percent of all companies in the private non-farm sector but accounted for 93 percent of its turnover.

1:16 The Survey also found that export performance and states' standard of living had a strong correlation with each other.

1:14 "The distribution of the GST base among the states is closely linked to their Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP), allaying fears of major producing that the shift to the new system would undermine their tax collections," the Economic Survey said.

1:11 "There has been a large increase in the number of indirect taxpayers; many have voluntarily chosen to be part of the GST, especially small enterprises that buy from large enterprises and want to avail themselves of input tax credits," the Economic Survey said.

1:07 "To be sure, uncertainty will not be definitively lifted until the GST stabilizes later this year. But the provisional assessment is this: revenue collection under the GST is doing well, surprisingly so, for such a transformational reform," the Economic Survey says.

1:05 "Government measures to curb black money and encourage tax formalization, including demonetization and the GST, have increased personal income tax collections substantially (excluding the securities transactions tax). From about 2 percent of GDP between 2013-14 and 2015-16, they are likely to rise to 2.3 percent of GDP in 2017-18, a historic high," Economic Survey says.

1:03 "A final, important factor explaining the growth recovery is fiscal, which is providing a boost to aggregate demand. For reasons related to smoothening the transition, GST revenues will only be collected for 11 months, which is akin to a tax cut for consumers. Meanwhile, overall revenue expenditure growth by the central and state governments at remains strong at 11.7 percent (April to November). Cyclical conditions may also lead to lower tax and non-tax revenues, which act as an automatic stabilizer," the Economic Survey says.

1:01 "The other issue is the challenge of employment. The lack of consistent, comprehensive, and current data impedes a serious assessment. Even so, it is clear that providing India’s young and burgeoning labor force with good, high productivity jobs will remain a pressing medium-term challenge," Economic Survey says.

12:55 "Addressing the current account vulnerability requires raising the trajectory of export growth. Here, an important lesson is the need for macroeconomic policy to support the development strategy," Economic Survey says.

12:54 "Against this overall economic and political background, economic management will be challenging in the coming year. If the obvious pitfalls (such as fiscal expansion) are avoided and the looming risks are averted that would be no mean achievement," Economic Survey says.

12:53 "The biggest source of upside potential will be exports. If the relationship between India’s exports and world growth returns to that in the boom phase, and if world growth in 2018 is as projected by the IMF, then that could add another ½ percentage point to growth," Economic Survey says.

12:52 NITI Aayog Vice Chairman tells CNBC TV18 that GST revenue is expected to come in higher going forward.

12:50 "Demonetization temporarily reduced demand and hampered production, especially in the informal sector, which transacts mainly in cash. This shock largely faded away by mid-2017, when the cash-GDP ratio stabilized. But at that point GST was introduced, affecting supply chains, especially those in which small traders (who found it difficult to comply with the paperwork demands) were suppliers of intermediates to larger manufacturing companies," Economic Survey says.

12:46 Economic Survey says economy management is likely to be challenging in FY19.

12:45 "Now, even the IT sector is confronting governance challenges, as its model of providing low-cost programming for foreign clients comes under threat from rapid technological change. So, one might say that India had moved from 'crony socialism to stigmatized capitalism'," Economic Survey says.

12:43 "The first new issue—yet in some ways the oldest issue—is agriculture. Successful economic and social transformation has always happened against the background of rising agricultural productivity. In the last four years, the level of real agricultural GDP and real agriculture revenues has remained constant, owing in part to weak monsoons in two of those years," Economic Survey says.

12:40 "The twilight of the government’s current term is an appropriate juncture to step back and draw broader lessons for the Indian economy going forward," Economic Survey says.

12:38 Economic Survey says that biggest source of upside potential is the exports sector.

12:37 "The transformational Goods and Services Tax (GST) was launched in July 2017. With a policy change of such scale, scope, and complexity, the transition unsurprisingly encountered challenges of policy, law, and information technology systems, which especially affected the informal sector. Expeditious responses followed to rationalize and reduce rates, and simplify compliance burdens," says Economic Survey.

At the same time, decisive action was taken to grasp the nettle of the Twin Balance Sheet (TBS) challenge, arguably the festering, binding constraint on Indian growth prospects. On the 4 R’s of the TBS—recognition, resolution, recapitalization, and reforms—recognition was advanced further, while major measures were taken to address two other R’s.

12:34 Economic Survey predicts gross value added for FY18 at 6.1 percent as against 6.6 percent for the previous financial year.

12:33 Economic Survey says that consumption demand is likely to be aided by low real estate.

12:31 Economic Survey predicts services growth for FY18 at 8.3 percent, industry growth at 4.4 percent, and agri growth of 2.1 percent.

12:29 Economic Survey says that agriculture, education, and employment will be areas of focus in the medium term.

12:28 Economic Survey says private investment is poised for a rebound.

12:25 Economic Survey says that currently prevalent high oil prices are a matter of concern.

12:25 Economic Survey expects FY19 growth to be 7-7.5 percent vs 6.5 percent for FY18.

12:23 The Economic Survey has been tabled in Parliament.

12:21 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to soon table the Economic Survey in Parliament. The document will be tabled in both houses of Parliament at the same time.

12:11 According to the page on which the Economic Survey will get published, there are still 48 minutes to go before the document is released.

12:06 Sources told NewsRise that the Economic Survey is likely to peg FY19 growth to be led by industrial revival.

12:04 Sources told NewsRise that the Economic Survey is likely to estimate FY18 growth at 6.7 percent, FY19 growth at 7-7.5 percent.

11:58 Vice President Venkaiah Naidu addressed the joint session of Parliament and said that all parties must work together to achieve the dream of India.

11:52 President Kovind lauds the government's fight against corruption, pointing out that registrations of over 350,000 suspicious companies have been canceled over the last one year.

11:47 The Economic Survey, which is scheduled to be tabled at noon today, will call for including petroleum in the GST regime.

11:43 President Kovind said that digital payments have prevented as much as Rs 57,000 crore from getting into the wrong hands. He also said that Aadhaar has helped in securing the rights of the poor by eliminating middlemen.

11:37 President Kovind said that the government has increased minimum wage of labourers by more than 40 percent.

11:32 President Kovind said that the government is planning to connect all villages to rural roads by 2019. He also said that empowerment, not appeasement of minorities, is the government's agenda.

11:20 President Kovind also said that he hopes the triple talaq bill gets passed soon by Parliament.

11:18 President Kovind addressed a joint session of Parliament and said that the government is keen on reducing economic disparity in the country.

11:05 The Sensex and Nifty indices were up 0.9 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, ahead of the Economic Survey getting tabled in Parliament.

11:01 President Kovind starts addressing joint session of Parliament.

10:44 Parliament’s Budget Session begins today with all eyes on the all-important Economic Survey to be presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, followed by the Budget on Thursday.

Apart from the Budget, several other crucial bills are on the agenda for this session, including the contentious triple talaq bill, which criminalises the practice instant divorce among Muslims.

10:30 Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian will present highlights of the Economic Survey at 1.30 pm today, after the document is tabled in Parliament.

10:15 The Survey’s GDP growth projections for 2018-19 and estimates for the current year (2017-18) will be one of most tracked statistics as it would offer cues on how quickly the government expects the economy to accelerate to a faster lane.

The Central Statistics Office’s (CSO’s) first advance estimates, released earlier this month, projected that India will likely grow at 6.5 percent in 2017-18, slower than the previous year’s 7.1 percent expansion, but a rebound in household spending and corporate investments held out hopes of rapid recovery.

10:10 Has the Indian economy fully recovered from the twin disruptions of demonetisation and goods and services tax (GST)? Is the economy set to decisively move into the 8 percent-plus growth track? Is the Indian economy again poised to hit a sweet spot, cantering past China to regain its lost status as the world’s fastest growing major economy? The Economic Survey will have answers to these questions.

10:03 How different is this year’s survey from previous ones?

Earlier, the survey came as a single volume divided in two parts. The first part contained commentary; the second part carried statistics.

Since last year the survey has been presented in two volumes—tabled seven months apart. The move to advance the budget’s presentation by a month to February 1 from February 28 has prompted a modification to a two volume system. In the modified construct, the first part is tabled in the last week of January, with commentary and outlook, while the second volume, presented in July-August contains updated macroeconomic data and analyses.

This year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will table the Survey on January 29, Monday—three days before he presents the Union Budget for 2018-19 on February 1.

09:56 Being released around 15 months after demonetisation, this year's Economic Survey is expected to talk in detail about the costs and benefits of the move. This will also be the first Economic Survey to be released after the introduction of GST and the document is expected to talk in length about the new tax regime as well.

09:54 The Economic Survey will be tabled after President Ram Nath Kovind's speech at 11 am to a joint session of Parliament.

09:51 The Economic Survey will be tabled in both houses of Parliament today. The Survey is a review of the Indian economy over the last 12 months and will speak about the government's various policy initiatives.