NEW DELHI: The Government is likely to take new initiatives to expedite the utilization of external assistance in the pipeline, amounting to a staggering $30 billion.
Stressing the need for militisation of already authorized external aid in view of shortage of foreign exchanges, the 1991, 92 Economic Survey points out that the measures already taken in this direction include waiver of DGTD clearance for import of capital goods under all foreign-aided projects, enhancement of additional central assistance to the States to 100% in the case of social sector projects and formation of standard bid documents
It says “These steps are in the right direction but by themselves, nor adequate, and new measures may have to be introduced in order to step up the utilization of external assistance.”
As regards the country’s balance of payments (BOP) position, the Survey says that the situation on current account is expected to deteriorate during 1991-92 because of decline in actress to external commercial borrowings and the outflow of non-resident deposit. “The adverse trends in market-elated capital inflows would necessitate exceptional financing of theorderof32billionduring 1991(92, This is expected to be largely covered by the World Bank structural adjustment loan, drawl of funds from International Monetary Fund (IMF) and by additional financing from multilateral and bilateral sources.
“The current account deficit is however, expected to decline from 2.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1990-910 less than two percent in 1991-92.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 13, 1992
