Economy set to grow nine percent in 2011-12: Manmohan Singh

SEOUL - The Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on Friday said India will revert to its pre-crisis economic growth rate of nine per cent in the next fiscal.

Addressing the plenary session of the fifth G-20 Summit in Seoul this morning, Dr. Singh said: “I am happy to say that the Indian economy has rebounded fairly well from the crisis… We hope to achieve nine per cent growth in 2011-12.”

As regards the current fiscal, Dr. Singh said the country was likely to clock 8.5 per cent growth rate, up from 7.4 per cent in 2009-10.

“India was growing at nine per cent before the financial meltdown in 2008 hit the world economies and slowed growth,” he said

“We grew at nine per cent in the four years prior to the crisis, but slowed down to 6.7 per cent in the 2008-09,” Dr. Singh said, adding the emerging economies in Asia are now doing well.

He further said that the economic performance of emerging markets, including many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, has improved greatly in recent years.

“These countries are now in a position to absorb capital flows aimed at an expansion in investment, which would inject much needed demand into the global economy,” he said.

“Many emerging market countries are also in a position to attract private investment, including into infrastructure,” he added.

He further said that high unemployment in industrialized countries threatens a revival of protectionist sentiment, especially since the use of conventional monetary and fiscal tools to revive the economy has been exhausted.

“Uncertainty about the prospects of industrialized countries affects the investment climate and dampens the medium term growth prospects of emerging market countries All this suggests that much remains to be done to bring our economies back to the path of strong, sustainable and balanced growth,” he added.(ANI)