By Arvind Padmanabhan, IANS,
Pittsburgh : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday predicted a 6.3 percent growth for India during the current fiscal even though he saw a dip in the economic expansion of developing countries as a whole to 1.5 percent.
“Despite a drought, which will affect agricultural production, we expect to grow by around 6.3 percent in 2009-10,” the prime minister told the plenary session of the G20 Summit here.
He also said the economy will stage a recovery the next year to 7-7.5 percent.
“The relatively strong performance is partly due to the strong stimulus measures introduced in the second half of 2008-09 that have been continued in the current financial year.”
The prime minister also maintained that the current global financial crisis had affected developing countries as well.
“The fact that some of us have fared relatively well does not mean the crisis has not affected the developing world significantly,” he said, adding the drop in the growth of developing countries indicated the extent of such impact.
“An estimated 90 million people in the developing world are likely to be pushed below the poverty line.”