PM promises enabling environment for double-digit growth

NEW DELHI - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday promised an environment that will help India attain a nine percent growth next year, expanding further to double-digit levels in the medium term, but said challenges too needed to be addressed.

“We were among the few countries that recovered quickly from the after-effects of the global economic crisis,” the prime minister told the HT Leadership Summit here, adding India, although affected, handled the crisis better than others.

“Last year we grew at 7.4 percent, this year I am confident that the economy will grow at 8.5 percent, and next year, we hope to return the economy to a sustained growth of 9-10 percent,” the prime minister added.

The Oxford-educated economist said India had the enabling environment to achieve that kind of expansion of GDP that will be improved. The challenge was to address issues like terrorism, communalism and other social irritants.

“We need a framework which will help us grow at 9-10 percent per annum. With material savings and investment rates of 35-37 percent of GDP, capital-output ratio of 4:1, we can easily sustain 9-10 percent per annum and create wealth that can be redistributed.”