Govt will remove investment bottlenecks: PM

(File Photo)

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SME Times News Bureau | 27 May, 2013
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that low investments, particularly in infrastructure sector, have been a "big bottleneck" to the Indian economy and holding up the growth, adding the government is trying to address the problem.

"Our principal concern is to strengthen the impulses to accelerate the process of investment, particularly the investment in infrastructure which has been a big bottleneck which has held up our growth process," the prime minister said in an interview with Japanese media ahead of his visit to the Asia's second largest economy.

"We would like to remove these bottlenecks. We have set up the Cabinet Committee on Investment to look at precisely the bottlenecks which hamper the growth of infrastructure sector. And we are hopeful and confident that this will happen," Singh said.

The prime minister said India's economic growth would accelerate to 6-6.5 percent in the current financial year as compared to around five percent growth registered in the previous year, according to the transcript of the interview released by the Prime Minister's Office here Sunday.

Singh will embark on three-day official visit of Japan, beginning Monday.

"Our hope is that in the current year our growth rate will go up to six-to-6.5 percent and in the next two or three years, we are confident of returning the Indian economy back to the eight percent growth rate," he said.

The prime minister said revival in savings and investments would help accelerate economic growth in the coming years.

Singh admitted that regulatory problems, especially related to environment clearances, have hurt investments and growth in the recent years.

"We had also some domestic reasons because several projects which were listed, which were included in our development plan, got held up because of regulatory problems with regard to environment clearance, with regard to availability of coal and other inputs," he said.

"Now we are trying to tackle all these issues," the prime minister added.