New Delhi: The Indian economy will grow at a rate of 5.6 percent in 2014, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Thursday said in its annual report.
The UNCTAD Trade and Development Report 2014 also forecasts that developing economies as a whole are likely to repeat the performance of previous years, growing at between 4.5 and 5 percent.
It forecast the Chinese economy to grow by 7.5 percent in 2014.
India’s economic growth rate recorded a two-and-half-year high of 5.7 percent in the first quarter of the current fiscal ending June.
Speaking at the report launch, Jawaharlal Nehru University professor and economist Jayati Ghosh, however, said expectations may need to be tempered.
The UNCTAD report forecasts that growth will go over 5.5 percent in Asian and sub-Saharan countries, but will remain subdued at around 2 percent in North Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.
Transition economies’ growth is expected to fall further to around one percent, from an already weak performance in 2013, the report said.
International trade has not decelerated because of higher trade barriers or supply-side difficulties, but is the result of weak global demand, it added.
As the international community sets about defining a new set of development goals, it is vital that countries have sufficient policy space, the report emphasised.
“With a new set of wide-ranging sustainable development goals already tabled in, a post-2015 development agenda will not be feasible without the availability of more instruments and greater flexibilities in policy making,” it said.