India to return to 9pc growth; US will bounce back too: PM
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was confident of India soon returning to nine per cent growth level, helped by resumption in capital flows from developed nations, and hoped that the US economy too would rebound.
"With the entrepreneurial skills of the US business class and the US educational system, I have no doubt that the United States will overcome this temporary setback (economic crisis)," he told The Washington Post ahead of his visit to the US starting November 22.
Singh will be President Barack Obama's first official state guest and would, among other things, seek to operationalise the India-US civil nuclear deal clinched during the presidency of George W Bush.
"Our export growth rate has sharply declined. The flow of capital has also been affected," he said, referring to the global economic crisis of last year.
"But more recently, capital has started coming back to our country. Before the crisis, our growth rate was at 8.5 per cent to 9 per cent per year. This year, it will be about 6.5 per cent. In two years, we should go back to 9 per cent growth rate," Singh said.
India's economic growth fell sharply to 6.7 per cent in 2008-09 after three years of over nine per cent expansion, largely on collapse in investments and fall in exports.
Responding to questions on the economic crisis, the Prime Minister was optimistic of US' recovery from last year's crisis. He was of the view that India's banking system was far better regulated.
"We don't allow our banking system to invest heavily in those types of assets."
To questions whether he felt he has made a difference to India as prime minister and 'what will your legacy be?', Singh said: "I hope I've made some difference. That's for posterity to judge."
