Economy is not out of wood: Manmohan

The NDA government should not be "lured into false belief" that the economy is out of the wood, former prime minister Manmohan Singh said on Saturday, reacting to the Moody's upgrade of India's sovereign credit rating.

"I am glad that Moody's has done what they have done but we must not be, I think, lured into false belief that we are out of the wood," he said, reacting to a query on Moody's rating, here.

The economy needed strong purposeful guidance to move forward at the rate which the government itself says they want the country to move eight to 10%, Singh said on the sidelines of a national seminar on 'Macro Economic Developments in India: Policy Perspectives' organised by the Economics Department of St Teresa's College, Ernakulam. His comments came in the wake of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley terming the Moody's upgrading India's sovereign rating after 13 years as "belated recognition" of reforms undertaken.

Singh also cautioned that the soaring prices of the crude oil could "hurt the fiscal system" of the country.

 Meanwhile, former finance minister P Chidambaram mocked at the government's elation over the sovereign rating upgrade by Moody's. He said only a few months ago the regime had flayed the rating methodology.

"Just some months ago, the government had said the Moody's methodology was all wrong... A long letter was written by Shaktikanta Das (ex-economic affairs secretary) questioning Moody's ratings methodology, saying they've to revise their methodology as it's all wonky," he told the Tata Literature Live here on Saturday.