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India sees growth accelerating to 9 pct next year
AFP - Wednesday, November 19
NEW DELHI (AFP) - - India insisted Tuesday its economy would rebound next year from the global financial crisis, saying it expected to return to robust growth of nine percent.
"What's required now is confidence, courage and taking the steps necessary to compensate for the ill-effects of a world slowdown," Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told an international business meeting.
"We'll bounce back... we'll be back to a high growth rate (of nine percent) in the second half of the financial year 2009/10," he told the annual India World Economic Forum attended by 700 delegates from India and around the world.
However, observers were skeptical, suggesting he was talking up the growth prospects of Asia's third-largest economy with the Congress-led government facing general elections by May 2009.
"There's an unwillingness to admit reality," Percy Mistry, chairman of Oxford International Finance, told AFP, adding he did not expect any upturn until early 2011.
"He's being a cheerleader for the economy," said a US fund manager who did not wish to be named.
Chidambaram said the lowest official forecast for growth in Asia's third-largest economy was seven percent for the year to March 2009 -- over three times forecast world expansion -- which was not "an occasion for wearing sack cloth and ashes."
The last few weeks has seen a stream of gloomy data about the performance of India's economy which has grown by at least nine percent for the past three years.
The minister said it would be "helpful" if domestic interest rates came down further but authorities could not take their eyes off inflation as it had not been "completely licked".
However, "the bias has shifted in favour of (stimulating) growth", he said.
The central bank has cut its benchmark lending rate by 150 basis points to 7.5 percent in the last month as well as dramatically reduced the amount of cash commercial banks must hold in reserve to spur lending and growth.
A sharp drop in India's inflation to just below nine percent has given the bank more rate-cutting room, economists say.
The minister's upbeat outlook was in sharp contrast to private forecasters who see growth this fiscal year at around 6.8 percent and next year as low as 5.5 percent as India is buffeted by the global downturn.
He said industry could play its role in boosting sluggish demand.
"The classic response to a demand slowdown is to cut prices," he said.
"Hotels must cut tariffs, airlines must cut prices, real estates must cut prices," he said.
While the global economy might be in store for more bad news, this would not affect "the manner in which in which most Indians live and work", he added.
"About 60 to 65 percent of India's population and workforce depends on agriculture and agriculture continues to grow at a robust pace," he said, forecasting a "bumper" winter crop this year with record planting.
K.V. Kamath, head of India's largest business group, the Confederation of Indian Industry, co-host of the conference, echoed Chidambaram's optimism.
"A large part of the Indian economy relies on a whole different paradigm than what the rest of the world relies on," he said.
"Even if it gets worse globally, it will not have a catastrophic effect."
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