Date:12/12/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/12/12/stories/2007121262372000.htm

Business

GDP to grow at 8.5-9 p.c. : Montek

Special Correspondent

Efforts will be made to achieve more inclusive growth

— PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT

OPTIMISTIC: Kamal Nath (centre), Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, with Montek Singh Ahluwalia (left), Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, and Saurabh Srivastava, President, TiE Delhi, at a summit in New Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: India’s medium-term growth prospects will not be affected by the global economic slowdown and its economy is likely to achieve a growth rate of about 8.5-9 per cent during the current fiscal and thereafter maintain the nine per cent growth in GDP (gross domestic product) in each of the next three years and touch 10 per cent during the terminal year of the XI Plan (2011-12) as also maintain the nine per cent growth during the next three years of the Eleventh Plan, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said here on Tuesday.

Addressing delegates at the ‘TIE Entrepreneurial Summit 2007’ here, Dr. Ahluwalia said the Government would make efforts for achieving more inclusive growth so that the benefits of the ongoing reforms reached the hitherto neglected sections of the society, particularly in rural areas. The Government’s policies in this regard, he said, would focus on agriculture, health, education and infrastructure. “We would be looking forward to greater participation of [the] private sector in development of infrastructure sector,” he said.