9% growth rate ambitious but achievable target: PM

22 Aug 2011 Evaluate

The Planning Commission, which has pegged the growth target for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) at 9% despite the ongoing global financial turmoil. Quoting 9% economic growth rate as ‘very ambitious’, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, given the current state of the global economy, the target can be achieved if India overcome problems of inadequate infrastructure and managed its resources better.

'Since we have already achieved about 8.2 per cent in the 11th plan period, it may seem that a transition to 9 per cent growth is not difficult,' the Prime Minister said. Despite the global financial crisis in 2008, and ongoing uncertainty in Europe and US over the issue of debt crisis, the performance of Indian economy has been better than the other emerging economies. 'However, it is in fact a very ambitious target given the current global economic situation, which is full of uncertainties about the prospects in industrialized countries and their implications for global capital markets,' he added.

The fear of economic slowdown occurred when the leading global rating agency Standard and Poor’s downgraded the United States sovereign debt and ongoing debt crisis in European nation, which affected the stock market sentiment across the globe.  Accepting the adverse impact of ongoing global crisis, Prime Minster said 'Our own economy has also slowed down compared to last year, and this year's growth may be around 8% or a little more, at best'.

'Despite this sobering environment, we should aim at 9 per cent growth. This is because we are not planning for today, or even for the rest of this year. We are planning for the five year period from 2012-13 to 2016-17,' he added.

With reference to the growth trend of Asian nations such as Japan, Korea in past and China in last two decades, Manmohan Singh said India too could grow at a rapid rate provided it could scale up infrastructure and bring out wide-spread reforms. 'India is now capable of repeating the performance of this group of Asian countries. But we must remember that it will not happen automatically, by simply proceeding on a business as usual basis. There are many difficult challenges we must overcome to achieve the transition to 9 per cent growth,' he said.

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