India's growth potential above 7.5%, says its cenbank chief

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - India's growth potential is 7.5% or more, the country's central bank chief said on Friday, which is a little above the bank's full-year forecast for 2024 of 7.2%.

"I think India's potential growth today ... is about seven-and-a-half-percent-plus," Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said at the Bretton Woods Committee's annual Future of Finance Forum.

"This year, we expect at the end of the year to record 7.2%," he said, with slower growth in the first quarter mostly due to low government expenditure during the national election.

Das said India's merchandise export improvement was below expectation as external demand is not as robust as before, though he said services exports had picked up.

The forum was held in Singapore in partnership with Swiss bank UBS.

(Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)