HomeEconomy NewsUnlikely that the government will meet fiscal deficit target, says Prasun Gajri of HDFC Life

Unlikely that the government will meet fiscal deficit target, says Prasun Gajri of HDFC Life

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By Ekta Batra   | Surabhi Upadhyay  December 28, 2018, 1:30:35 PM IST (Published)

The government is unlikely to meet its fiscal deficit target, said Prasun Gajri, chief investment officer of HDFC Life.



The government data released on Thursday showed that the fiscal deficit in the April-November period stood at Rs 7.17 lakh crore or 114.8 percent of the budgeted target for the fiscal year that ends in March.

“Meeting the fiscal deficit target is always important, but it does not look likely that the government will be able to meet it. However, in our view, I guess the last quarter of the year clearly sees a revenue uptick, there will be some flows through the disinvestment to the government corpus. Putting all that together, we do not believe the slippage will be more than 20-25 basis of GDP. So maybe close to 3.5 percent of GDP...,” said Gajri.

Gajri believes the market will give positive return in 2019. He said, “Earnings growth is reasonably positive in the next financial year and that will be the big driver for the Indian stock markets going ahead ... volatility is here to stay, but overall given the fact that the markets are eventually driven by earnings ... that will augur really well for the markets.”

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