Ten Years of Economic Reforms in India:Achievements and Challenges
Chan-Wahn Kim

Over the last ten years since the economic reforms of 1991, the Indian economy has experienced considerable changes. Almost all licensing restrictions on the economic activities have been removed. The trade and foreign exchange regimes have been substantially liberalized. All these policies have been guided by an export as well as market oriented strategy of growth. These policies have significantly improved the competitiveness of Indian economy and accelerated the pace of integration of the domestic economy with the international economy. As a result, India's macro economic conditions have also improved substantially compared to the situation a decade ago.

Notwithstanding these notable achievements, the Indian economy is still beset by a number of grey areas which require urgent attention. This thesis underlines some critical issues and the tasks ahead. First, it is observed that the majority of the Indian low income classes have not witnessed the fruits of economic reforms, rather they have been adversely affected by the pressure on daily commodity prices. The economic reforms have increased the gap between the rich and the poor. This holds true across persons as well as different Indian states. The inter-state disparity has been widening, especially in the wake of the ongoing IT revolution where a handful of rich states with the requisite infrastructure have been the principal beneficiaries. This widening divide with strong social implications has the potential of snowballing into a major crisis challenging the very structure of Indian federal polity. Therefore, the policy makers should be seriously concerned with this critical matter.

Secondly, for achieving a sustainable growth, India should urgently reduce the fiscal deficits of the Central and State governments, and improve the efficiency of a large number of public enterprises. The most critical obstacle for reducing India's chronically high fiscal deficits and improving the efficiency of the public sector comes from the Indian politics. Since the middle of 1990s, India has witnessed political instability and coalition politics both at the Centre and states. The political situation has aggravated the politicians' tendency of announcing frequent populist measures that have caused a severe burden on the economy. Thus, political consensus for the direction and scope of economic reforms is a strongly felt necessity because the present political situation is likely to continue at least in the near future. This raises the very question of sustainability of reforms.

Thirdly, if the public savings are not improved, India would face serious resource constraint for investment in infrastructure and social services such as primary education and health, which form the basic source of sustainable growth. It is particularly emphasized that the Indian ruling elite should ensure that activities relating to human development accompany the process of economic reforms in order to achieve real development.

제1장 序論

제2장 經濟改革의 배경
1. 國內的 배경
2. 國際的 배경

제3장. 經濟改革 政策의 특징
1. 政策의 主要內容
2. 政策에 대한 政治的, 社會的 抵抗
3. 政策의 漸進的 發展段階

제4장 經濟改革의 成果
1. 財政赤字幅 縮小
2. 인플레이션 安定
3. 國內總生産(GDP) 및 投資成長
4. 國際收支 安定

제5장 經濟改革의 問題點
1. 低所得層의 疎外問題
2. 地域間의 不均衡 發展問題
3. 官僚主義 및 聯邦政府와 州政府간의 政策合議 문제

제6장 向後課題
1. 財政赤字폭 縮小
2. 社會間接資本 확충
3. 公企業의 民營化 과제
4. 人的資源 개발

제7장 結論