By IANS
Gurgaon (Haryana) : Iran views India as a growing powerhouse in the industrial and technological spheres, a senior minister from the country said Friday.
“Within Asia, I would particularly like to cite India as a growing powerhouse in the industrial and technological spheres with vast energy needs, which Iran can meet in a mutually strengthening economic cooperation framework,” Iran’s Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Davood Danesh Jafari said.
He was addressing the plenary on “Ensuring Growth, Making It Inclusive: The West Asian and African View” on the concluding day of the three-day Partnership Summit 2008 in this IT hub bordering the Indian capital.
The minister also noted: “Investment opportunities in South Asian economies, especially India, could offer tangible and extensive areas of cooperation between the two sides”.
Addressing the subject of the plenary, Jafari said economic reforms in Iran had been accelerated “and are proceeding on a much broader front”.
“To achieve a balanced development profile, the main thrust of our economic policies aim to achieve a more diversified economy with strong and sustained growth potential together with better distribution of wealth and the raising of overall social welfare,” the minister stated.
Thus, one of the steps taken as part of the reforms is the allocation of stocks in large government enterprises to low-income groups, he added.
“The primary objective of such a measure has been to minimise or alleviate potential social restrictions to a wide scale privatisation strategy which is being pursued by the government,” Jafari explained.
According to the minister, the government “has also shown commitment to the basic needs of poor families through providing low-cost housing loans for the construction of new homes or improvement of rural homes… to ensure that the basic needs of the weakest economic groups are not overlooked in the drive to achieve high economic efficiency and growth statistics”.
Detailing the Syrian experience, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdulla Dardari said economic reforms had seen GDP (gross domestic product) rise from four to six percent, even as the country aimed to reduce poverty from 11.2 percent to five percent and unemployment from 12 percent to six percent by 2015.
He also noted that the number of people living below the “absolute” poverty line had reduced from 11.4 percent to 10.4 percent, even as the per capita income had risen from $1,175 to $1,285.
Congolese Minister of National Economy and Commerce Andre-Philippe Futa spoke of country’s battle against corruption to ensure inclusive growth.
“Between the 1960s and the 1980s, we went through an era of civil wars and economic mismanagement. Since 2001, we have introduced a sweep of political and economic reforms to lay the base for sustained and inclusive growth.
“We are now engaged in the battle against corruption because if corruption is there, you can’t make growth inclusive,” Futa pointed out.
Presenting the broader continental picture, Maxwell M. Mkwezalamba, the African Union commissioner for economic affairs, said economic reforms had seen GDP grow to 5.5 percent, largely driven by agriculture, manufacturing and oil.
“The rates of primary admissions and child mortality have also fallen. We are also committed to addressing gender issues,” Mkwezalamba said, pointing out that five of the 10 African Union Commissioners were women.