Govt trying to protect economy from global mess: PM

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SME Times News Bureau | 08 Sep, 2012
The Indian economy is passing through a difficult time but the government is trying to protect it from the global economic mess, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Friday.

"The world as a whole is faced with serious economic difficulties, grappling with recession, and we are trying to prevent India getting affected by what is happening in the outside world," the prime minister told reporters outside the parliament.

Criticising the BJP for disrupting parliament, he said the government was keen to discuss its strategy to deal with the economic problems.

"Parliament should have discussed these issues - what is our economic strategy to deal with these global tensions, these global developments - but Parliament was not allowed to do any of these things," he said.

Later in a written message addressed to the people of India, Manmohan Singh said the Indian economy can return to the high growth path.

"We must work hard to ensure that the Indian economy returns to high growth. I have no doubt we can do it," he said.

Indian economy has been under stress in the recent quarters. The country's gross domestic product (GDP) grew at a sluggish 5.5 percent in the first quarter of the current financial year.

The country's GDP growth slumped to 6.5 percent in 2011-12, which is even lower than the 6.7 percent level achieved during the global financial crisis of 2008-09. The economy had expanded by 8.4 percent in 2010-11.

The prime minister said growth momentum can be pushed up by stimulating investments in infrastructure sector.

"We can rebuild our growth momentum and encourage entrepreneurship by stimulating investment in infrastructure, in power, in roads, ports, railways, and telecommunications. This will send a clear signal to the world that India is on the road to recovery," he said.

"This in turn will bring back the momentum of growth, generate productive employment and also enable us to direct more resources to help the poor and weaker sections," the prime minister added.