Government targeting 9 percent growth in two years

New Delhi, Nov 8: The government Sunday said it still had an unfinished agenda -- to put the country's economic growth back at 9 percent and more.

'We have come down from a GDP (gross domestic product) growth of 9.5 percent, which was there consistently for four years, to below 7 and 6.7 percent last year,' said Commerce Minister Anand Sharma at the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit here.

'We are determined to take it back to 9 percent in two and half years' time, if not earlier. We still have an unfinished agenda. We have to strive to do more,' Sharma told delegates.

The minister said the government had created an investor-friendly environment, which has helped the country to attract more foreign institutional investors (FII) and foreign direct investment (FDI).

'We created a policy environment to make it investor-friendly and welcoming those who had earlier reservation or lacked confidence to come to us.'

While referring to the prime minister's statement that foreign investments in India have exceeded $120 billion, Sharma also noted that there had been a dip last year on account of the prevailing global economic scenario.

'Last year, we did see flight of capital because of lack of confidence, which affected credit flows and affected FII and FDI, and some banks needed bailout packages.'

But he added that FII and FDI flows were creeping close to $17-18 billion this year and hoped that these would continue to increase

--IANS