By IANS,
New Delhi: The Indian economy is expected to grow at 8-8.5 percent this fiscal, but will need to step up efforts to improve manufacturing output, boost agricultural production and bring about key reforms if it is to touch double digits, the new Confederation of Indian Industry president B. Muthuraman said Monday.
Outlining a five-pronged strategy to achieve a sustained 10 percent growth, Muthuraman, who is also the vice chairman of Tata Steel, said: “Even with a moderation in investments, the Indian economy will grow in the range of 8-8.5 percent. But to target 10 percent growth consistently, manufacturing needs to grow by 12 percent.”
“Agriculture should grow by 4 percent and services by 10-11 percent,” he added.
To get on the high growth trajectory, Muthuraman suggested a five-pronged strategy which included identifying 100 mega projects to be put on a fast-track of implementation, creating infrastructure and driving investments into manufacturing so that the sector could increase its share in the gross domestic product to 25 percent.
Some of the measures suggested by CII to touch double-digit growth include:
– Expedite implementation of Goods and Service Tax to create a common market across the country
– Regulate agricultural markets by uniformly implementing the Agricultural Produce Market Committees Act across states
– Enhance transparency and sustainability in allocation, pricing of natural resources
Commenting on the high levels of inflation, which have spread from food to non-food items, Muthuraman said inflation would come down once global commodity prices fell and foreign investments, which had moderated till the third quarter of 2010-11, started to pick up again.