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WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (PTI) India has been a leader in digitalization over the past few years and has overcome some administrative bottlenecks through increased innovation, a senior International Monetary Fund official said.
As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, digitization has become even more important, Anner-Marie Gulde-Wolfe, deputy director of the IMF’s Asia-Pacific Department, told reporters at a news conference on Friday.
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“As we all know, India has been a leader in digitalization over the past few years, especially in providing digital infrastructure … which has increased innovation and overcome some of the administrative bottlenecks that existed before,” she said.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has left huge scars in Asia and elsewhere, and digitization is expected to be one of the ways to increase business productivity,” she said in response to a question.
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“We do have some empirical evidence. Our upcoming Regional Economic Outlook will have a chapter on corporate productivity, and it shows that companies at the digital frontier actually perform better during the Covid-19 recession. Of course. , also There is a way to go. Further progress should be made by closing the digital divide and increasing digital literacy,” she added.
The International Monetary Fund has a program that looks at digitization and how it can help governments implement reforms. The IMF is also increasingly providing technical assistance in this area, Gulde-Wolfe said.
The IMF is also working closely with India on this, she said, which is at the forefront of digitizing government services, which is also being used to distribute benefits during the pandemic.
Globally, India, with a growth rate of 6.1 percent, remains a bright spot, Gulde-Wolfe said in response to questions.
“But it does need to see what else can be done, and we’ve talked about scars before. So a lot of the issues that need to be addressed are more on the structural side,” she said.
“Given our stance on debt levels, we don’t see much room for fiscal support,” she said.
Likewise, on monetary policy, given the inflationary situation, there must be a tightening bias there, the IMF official said.
“But it’s important, you know, that anything that can be done in terms of structure doesn’t create barriers to growth and try to create expectations for continued going forward,” she said.
“I think that’s really important. But let me come back, you know, with the overall relegation we’ve seen in other countries, I think India is still at a relative bright spot,” Gulde-Wolfe said.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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