Escalation in US-China trade war may hit economic recovery: Raghuram Rajan

'I don't want to use the word trade war. I don't think they are there yet,' Rajan

The global economic recovery could be hit if the trade war between the US and China escalate, renowned economist and former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan said today.

"There are very worrisome scenarios here. I think we should not take this lightly," he said here.

"I do hope that better sense sort of prevails and we move off from a full-fledged process of one country doing it and the other country reacting and so on," he said.

Rajan, Professor, Finance, University of Chicago, advised that one should stay away from trade war particularly at a time when the economy the world over was in the process of recovery.

"I don't want to use the word trade war. I don't think they are there yet. But I do think that it is very important that we stay away because it could harm the current recovery which has been beneficial all over the world significantly.

"And for it to do that at a time when the US is quite strong and has got full employment is going quite reasonably, it seems to me that this is not the time that we should do it," the former RBI governor told reporters in response to a question related to trade war.

He was here to address the two-day Global Digital Summit (#Future) organised by the Kerala government.