By IANS,
New Delhi: Despite the recent slowdown, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said he was hopeful that the country will achieve its growth target of over 8.5 percent in the current fiscal.
“The overall GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth in 2010-11 is estimated at 8.5 percent and there is no reason why this momentum cannot be maintained in 2011-12 and improved further in the coming years,” Mukherjee said at an award function here.
Referring to a survey by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the finance minister said the current growth potential of India is close to 9 percent and the country is capable of sustaining high growth of 10 percent or more annually.
“There are several forecasts which predict that India’s growth will start to outpace China’s within three to five years and continue at a faster rate than any other large country over the next 20 to 25 years,” he said.
Industrial output growth slowed to 6.3 percent in April, prompting the analysts to say that the targeted growth of 8.75 percent to 9.25 percent would not be achieved during the current fiscal.
In the union budget, the finance minister pegged the economic growth in the range of 9 percent (plus or minus 0.25 percent) for fiscal 2011-12.