Indian PM pledges to attract more foreign investment
‘We cannot do much about the conditions that prevail
outside our country’:
INDIA: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh used his Independence Day
speech on Wednesday to promise to improve conditions for foreign
investment in the country after a sharp downturn in economic growth.
India recorded near double-digit expansion over much of the last
decade but the economy grew by just 5.3 percent in the January-March
quarter, a rate that threatens to stall its transformation since the
early 1990s.
Singh said that the government would “leave no stone unturned to
encourage investment in our country”, and vowed to increase spending on
much-needed infrastructure projects such as roads, railways and the
electricity network.
“To attract foreign capital, we will have to create confidence at the
international level that there are no barriers to investment in India,”
Singh said, in a signal that further liberalisation reforms were in the
pipeline.
Foreign companies keen to tap into India's emerging consumer society
have poured into India, but have often struggled to thrive amid
government policy U-turns, endemic corruption and bewildering red tape.
The ruling Congress party is already concerned about general
elections due in 2014, and the prime minister has launched a campaign to
revive its flagging fortunes since P. Chidambaram was named finance
minister two weeks ago.
Singh, delivering the traditional Independence Day address at the Red
Fort in Delhi, said that the world economy was “passing through a
difficult phase”, which had merged with India's domestic situation to
hinder growth.
“We cannot do much about the conditions that prevail outside our
country,” he said. “But we must make every effort to resolve the
problems inside our country so that our economic growth (is)... again
speeded up.” He added that growth must be obtained while controlling
inflation, which is likely to be stoked by a poor monsoon this year --
though the inflation rate unexpectedly dropped to 6.87 percent in July
from 7.25 percent in June.
Singh, 79, who is expected to step down before the elections,
repeated his forecast that annual GDP growth would exceed last year's
rate of 6.5 percent, a prediction dismissed by opposition leaders and
some independent economists.
AFP
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