india

Updated: Sep 26, 2019 21:37 IST

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday said the bankers informed her that there are no liquidity problems in the country and that demand will return to push the economy to move at a faster rate.

“I have not heard liquidity as a problem from anybody here today,” ANI quoted Sitharaman as saying after her meeting with heads of private banks on credit disbursal and liquidity.

“The message I get from this meeting today is that consumption is happening. Demand will get back and motivate our economy to move at a faster rate.The coming half year, things will have to look up and pep up every other sector, even if there are one or two sectors in which there may be some stress,”said the minister.

She also said that micro-finance units at the meeting have vouched for growth and are extending loans and that there is demand in the country.

“Many of the MFIs and micro-finance units which have come here are in deep country. They said that in those areas there is still demand and they are extending loans. All of them clearly voiced a positive growth which is a good encouraging story,” she said.

Sitharaman said there was no dissent at the meeting, which she described as “tonic-like”.

“On the whole it was very tonic-like meeting, where I heard a lot of positive things. Not one voice said there was a concern, shortfall of demand. None of them voiced liquidity concerns,” she said.

Earlier, finance secretary Rajeev Kumar said that the government would join the banks’ outreach programme to boost demand.

“The festival season is coming. Therefore, we have all decided to join the outreach program and step up their efforts in various districts,” Kumar said.

Last week, Sitharaman slashed corporate tax rate for domestic manufacturing companies from 30% to 22% and for new manufacturing firms from 25% to 15% to revive the economy which grew the slowest at 5 per cent in the last six years in the June quarter.