Worst is behind, but road ahead long, uncertain: PM

New Delhi, Nov 8 : India may have faced the global downturn better than most countries but the road ahead to accelerated growth will not be an easy one to endure, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Sunday.

“I am happy to say that India has been able to face the global economic downturn better than most other countries. The Indian economy grew at a respectable rate of 6.7 percent in 2008-09,” the prime minister said.

“The worst is behind us though the path to global recovery will be long and uncertain,” he told the India Economic Summit of the Davos-based World Economic Forum (WEF), which is also celebrating 25 years of engagement with India.

According to him, the integration of the Indian economy with the rest of the world undoubtedly created new opportunities, but also brought with it some new challenges, as demonstrated by the global financial crisis that exploded last year.

He predicted a growth of 6.5 percent for the Indian economy during the current fiscal and 7 percent for the next year, adding: “Our medium term objective is to achieve a growth rate of 9 percent per annum.”

He said a turn to high growth required work in many directions, since the world demand was expected to pick up only slowly, even as India's strategy was to deliver rapid but inclusive growth that creates jobs with rural uplift.

“Our strategy therefore must aim at sustaining a high rate of growth on the strength of strong domestic demand. We seek to achieve this through a large increase in investment in infrastructure.”