Gita Gopinath, the first female chief economist of International Monetary Fund (IMF) has pointed out the risk attributed to India’s high fiscal deficit that has been up for the past five years.

Speaking on the sidelines of World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Gopinath said “In the case of India what we flag is the fact that the overall consolidated fiscal deficit remains high and it has been the case for the last five years. We certainly need to fix that.”

Gopinath added that GST is also playing a major role in the  fiscal slippage and stated that “GST revenues haven’t come in at the rate with which it was expected and that would be an area for continued improvement.”

Gopinath who unveiled the IMF’s updated World Economic Outlook today also said “What we’re more concerned about are the growing risks to the global economy. And there are several of those: an acceleration in trade tensions, a worsening in financial conditions, no-deal Brexit and in the event of a faster than expected slowdown in China the consequences of that for the global economy would be far more negative than what we have right now.”

Gopinath, who is the Economic Counsellor and Director of Research of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was born in India in 1971. She received her PhD in economics from Princeton University in 2001 after earning a B.A. from the University of Delhi and M.A. degrees from both the Delhi School of Economics and University of Washington.

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