US help needed to sustain India’s nine to ten percent growth rate for next 30 years: PM

NEW DELHI - The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, on Monday said the help of the United States would be of enormous significance for India to sustain an annual growth rate of between nine and ten percent over the next 30 years.

Addressing a joint press conference with US President Barack Obama at Hyderabad House here, Dr. Singh said: ‘The foremost concerns of the Indian polity is to grapple with the problem of mass poverty, ignorance and disease, which still afflicts millions of our citizens. For that, we need a strong, resurgent, robust rate of economic growth, and it is a growth rate, which is within our reach. Our objective is to sustain a growth rate of nine to ten percent per annum in the next three decades, and in that process, the help of the United States is of enormous significance.”

He further went on to say that there is requirement for a global trading system, which doesn’t encourage protectionism, which enables “our entrepreneurs to make use of the enormous opportunities that processes of globalisation now offer.”

He said India needed American assistance by way of export of capital.

“We welcome American investments in our economy. I have mentioned earlier also on several occasions, India needs investments of trillion dollars in the next five years in its infrastructure, and we will welcome American contribution in fulfilling that ambition of ours,” Dr. Singh said.

The prime minister described America as the home of high technology, and stated: “We need that technology to upgrade our skills, both in the civilian sector, and also in the defence sector. I attach great importance to strengthening in every possible way India’s cooperation with the United States.”

“This is truly a relationship, which can become a defining relationship for this 21st blessed century of ours,” Dr. Singh said. By Smita Prakash (ANI)