Hyderabad: With GDP growth sliding to six-year low of 5 per cent in April-June quarter and several sectors facing low demand, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced a fresh set of measures to boost exports and the housing sector.
- As per today’s announcement the finance minister is going to meet the heads of all the public sector banks on September 19. This meeting is intended to review the progress on RBI’s mandatory usage of external benchmark for determining interest rate on floating rate loans. If this meeting is fruitful, bank customers will have to pay less EMIs in coming days.
- As the government has relaxed External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) norms for financing housing loans under PMAY category, this will help additional funds for loans.
- If you are a government employee, the interest rate on House Building Advance (HBA) shall be lowered and linked with 10-year G-sec yields. The HBA is offered to employees of the Central Government in order to assist in the construction or acquisition of houses/flats.While the interest rate on HBA is different to different slabs and varies between 6%-9.5% and the current G-sec 10-year rate is 6.73. So this new measure will benefit lakhs of government employees.
- The government has decided to set up a new fund of Rs 20,000 crore for the housing projects which are non-NPA and non-NCLT and are net worth positive in affordable and middle-income category segment. As per this announcement, if your house is 60% completed and you are lacking sufficient funds, this fund will be of much help for you. As per the finance minister around 3.5 lakh people will be benefitted with this fund.
The fresh set of measures to boost the economy has come in the wake of sinking business sentiment across the industry. With most engines of growth stuttering, the Reserve Bank of India recently lowered its GDP forecast and pegged it at 6.9 per cent in 2019-20. Several rating agencies and research firms expect the growth to be in the range of 6.5-7 per cent.
Besides domestic consumption slowdown, the external factors remain adverse threatening to pull down the economy. A lingering US-China trade war and fears of a global recession could make things worse.
Read: Finance Minister announces Rs 60,000 crore boost to exports, housing
