Finance Minister likely to announce measures to boost economy

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to address a press conference at 5 pm today in New Delhi.

New Delhi:Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will address a press conference at 5 pm on Friday in New Delhi. As per sources, Sitharaman is likely to announce some measures to arrest the current slowdown in the overall economy, especially, in the automobile and real estate sector.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to address a press conference at 5 pm today in New Delhi.

While the automobile sector has seen the worst performance in last 19 months recently, there is an unsold inventory of around 13 lakhs units in the housing sector.

The Finance Minister is also expected to clear the government’s stand on the contentious surcharge on foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), which has led to flight of the capital from the stock market in last one month.

In the last fortnight, Sitharaman has met representatives from various sectors of the economy. On August 15, there was meeting headed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the current state of the economy.

As per the latest data released by the government, the growth of eight core industries has dropped to 0.2 per cent in June. The automobile and fast moving consumer goods (FMGC) has also reported lower sale and sluggish demand.