IMF hasn't questioned GDP growth figures, says FM Nirmala Sitharaman

India got a 'C' grade only for its national accounts data because the base year used is still 2011 to 2012

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The ‘C’ rating assigned by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to India’s national accounts data was linked only to the country’s use of an old base year of 2011-12 for GDP data, and the IMF had not questioned India’s growth numbers, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday. 

Terming the debate around the IMF’s rating for India’s national accounts data adequacy “very ill-informed”, the minister said the IMF report released recently mainly talks about India’s overall economic performance which it has praised. The IMF expects India to grow at 6.5 per cent in 2025-26, and has appreciated its macro stability and inflation management, with inflation, she noted, is expected to stay around 2.3 per cent, below the Reserve Bank of India’s tolerance band. 

The IMF, she said, gives data quality grades for countries from ‘A’ to ‘D’. A ‘B’ rating means data has some shortcomings but is broadly adequate, and ‘C’ means some shortcomings that can “somewhat hamper surveillance”. 

India got a ‘C’ grade only for its national accounts data because the base year used is still 2011-12. “If my base year is old, obviously the ranking will reflect that,” she said. The government has already decided to update the base year to 2022-23, which will come into effect from 27 February, 2026, she added. 

On every other front, including inflation, government finance, external sector statistics, monetary and financial statistics, and inter-sectoral consistency, India has been rated B. “Our median rating is B,” she said, adding that many developing countries such as China and Brazil also get a median B.