The SAARCONOMY section contains a short commentary on regional economic issues or trends, as well as basic financial statistics from five countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Given the impact any upheaval in the Indian political economy has on the rest of South Asia, we also include in this Saarconomy edition reviews of the Economic Survey of 1995-96 brought out by the P.V. Narasimha Rao government, and of the state of liberalisation in India.
THE ECONOMIC Survey brought out annually by the Government of India is normally seen as a state-of-the-nation report that provides the background to the fiscal strategy being pursued over the next financial year. But the Economic Survey 1995-96 is not a report of projected economic performance over the coming year, but an aggressive self-assessment.
In summarising the four-and-a-half-year track record of P.V. Narasimha Rao and his finance minister, Manmohan Singh, the survey argues that the "economic reform" has been successful not merely in speedily turning around an economy in deep crisis, but also in putting it on a high and sustainable growth path.
It should come as no surprise that a corruption-tainted Government, beleaguered by a volatile rupee, sharply declining reserves and a sluggish stock market, and facing an election to boot, is likely to resort to a subjective and rose-tinted assessment of its performance.