New Delhi: US-based economist Arvind Subramanian , who has been critical of the new government for blocking the multilateral trade facilitation agreement as well as for its first Union budget, is likely to be named chief economic adviser to the finance ministry, filling a post left vacant after Raghuram Rajan became governor of the Reserve Bank of India in September last year.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley met a few candidates two weeks ago and finalized Subramanian’s name, a finance ministry official aware of the development said on condition of anonymity. “It has been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, which will take the final call," the official said.

The appointments committee of the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approves all high-level appointments in the government.

An email sent to Subramanian remained unanswered till the time of going to press. His likely appointment was reported earlier by Business Standard newspaper.

Subramanian is currently a senior fellow at Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) as well as at the Center for Global Development, both located in Washington DC.

Like Rajan, he too has worked at the International Monetary Fund, where he served as an assistant director in the research department. He has also taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (1999–2000) and at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (2008–10).

Subramanian would be a good choice for the chief economic adviser’s post given his command over macroeconomic issues, said Arvind Virmani, who has held the post in the past. “There are not many good macroeconomists around and in the post-1991 open economy era, you need a macroeconomist like him as the CEA (chief economic adviser)," he added.

Specializing in economic growth, international trade and intellectual property rights, Subramanian was involved in the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations in 1988-92, which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995.

After India decided to block the trade facilitation agreement (TFA) at WTO, citing a lack of progress in finding a permanent solution to its concerns on public stockholding, Subramanian wrote that India should withdraw its opposition to the pact, re-formulate its position on agriculture to persuade others of its merits, and revisit the issue at WTO in the near future.

TFA was aimed at simplifying customs procedures, facilitating the speedy release of goods from ports and cut transaction costs

“India looks obstructionist by opposing the TFA, especially for the new government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is trying to project an image of being investor- and market-friendly and constructive in its international engagement. The reputational costs of blocking the TFA could be high," he wrote in a blogpost on the website of PIIE on 29 July.

On the Modi government’s first budget, Subramanian praised its economic vision, but maintained that it lacked substance and failed to spell out policy actions.

“In substance, this was a budget prepared by incumbent bureaucrats, not incoming politicians. It represented continuity—which surprisingly was endorsed by much of the post-budget commentary—when the need of the hour was change," he wrote on 11 July.

Subramanian has written several books including India’s Turn: Understanding the Economic Transformation (2008) and Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance (2011). Foreign Policy magazine named him as one of the world’s top 100 global thinkers in 2011.

He advised the United Progressive Alliance government in different capacities, including as a member of the finance minister’s expert group on the G20 grouping of nations.

Subramanian obtained his undergraduate degree from St Stephens College, Delhi; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad; and his MPhil and DPhil from the University of Oxford in the UK.

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