English Quiz for Bank Exams 2015 – Set 8 – Reading Comprehension

Read the following
passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain
words/phrases have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering
some of the questions.

When times are hard, doomsayers are aplenty. The problem is
that if you listen to them too carefully, you tend to overlook the most obvious
signs of change. 2011 was a bad year. Can 2012 be any worse? Doomsday forecasts
are the easiest to make these days. So let’s try a contrarian’s forecast
instead.

Let’s start with the global economy. We have seen a steady
flow of good news from the US. The employment situation seems to be improving
rapidly and consumer sentiment, reflected in retail expenditures on
discretionary items like electronics and clothes, has picked up. If these
trends sustain, the US might post better growth numbers for 2012 than the
1.5-1.8 percent being forecast currently.

Japan is likely to pull out of a recession in 2012 as post-earthquake
reconstruction efforts gather momentum and the fiscal stimulus announced in
2011 begins to pay off. The consensus estimate for growth in Japan is a
respectable 2 per cent for 2012.

The “hard-landing” scenario for China remains and
will remain a myth. Growth might
decelerate further from the 9 per cent that it expected to clock in 2011 but is unlikely to drop below 8-8.5 percent in 2012.
Europe is certainly in a spot of trouble. It is perhaps already in recession
and for 2012 it is likely to post mildly negative growth. The risk of implosion
has dwindled over the last few months – peripheral economies like Greece, Italy
and Spain have new governments in place and have made progress towards genuine
economic reform.

Even with some of these positive factors in place, we have
to accept the fact that global growth in 2012 will be tepid. But there is a flipside to this. Softer growth means lower
demand for commodities and this is likely to drive a correction in commodity
prices. Lower commodity inflation will enable emerging market central banks to
reverse their monetary stance. China, for instance, has already reversed its
stance and has pared its reserve ratio twice. The RBI also seems poised for a
reversal in its rate cycle as headline inflation seems well on its way to its
target of 7 per cent for March 2012.

That said, oil might be an exception to the general trend in
commodities. Rising geopolitical tensions, particularly the continuing face-off
between Iran and the US, might lead to a spurt in prices. It might make sense
for our oil companies to hedge this risk instead of buying oil in the spot
market.

As inflation fears abate
and emerging market central banks begin to cut rates, two things could happen
Lower commodity inflation would mean lower interest rates and better credit
availability. This could set a floor to growth and slowly reverse the business
cycle within these economies. Second, as the fear of untamed, runaway inflation
in these economies abates, the global investor’s comfort levels with their
markets will increase.

Which of the emerging
markets will outperform and who will get left behind? In an environment in
which global growth is likely to be weak, economies like India that have a
powerful domestic consumption dynamic should lead; those dependent on exports
should, prima facie, fall behind. Specifically for India, a fall in the
exchange rate could not have come at a better time. It will help Indian
exporters gain market share even it global trade remains depressed. More
importantly, it could lead to massive import substitution that favours domestic
producers.

Let’s now focus on India and start with a caveat. It is
important not to confuse a short-run cyclical dip with a permanent de-rating of
its long-term structural potential. The arithmetic is simple. Our growth rate
can be in the range of 7-10 per cent depending on policy action. Ten per cent
if we get everything right, 7 per cent if we get it all wrong. Which policies
and reforms are critical to taking us to our 10 per cent potential ? In judging
this, let’s again be careful. Lets not go by the laundry list of reforms that
FIIs like to wave: increase in foreign equity limits in foreign shareholding,
greater voting rights to institutional shareholders in banks, FDI in retail,
etc. These can have an impact only at the margin. We need not bend over
backwards to appease the FIIs through these reforms – they will invest in our
markets when momentum picks up and will be the first to exit when the momentum
flags, reforms or not.

The reforms that we need are the ones that can actually
raise out. Sustainable long-term growth rate. These have to come in areas like
better targeting of subsidies, making projects in infrastructure viable so that
they draw capital, raising the
productivity of agriculture, improving healthcare and education, bringing the
parallel economy under the tax net, implementing fundamental reforms in
taxation like GST and the direct tax code and finally easing the myriad rules and regulations that make
doing business in India such a nightmare. A number of these things do not
require new legislation and can be done through executive order.