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| Pranab to meet India Inc on steps to rejuvenate economy |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi Jul 19, 2011, 20:29 IST |
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 Amid signs of sluggishness and spiralling inflation, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee will meet corporate honchos on August 1 to discuss ways to rejuvenate the economy.
Top industry leaders who have been invited for the meeting include Mukesh Ambani, Anil Ambani, Ratan Tata, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sunil Bharti Mittal, YC Deveshwar and K Narayana Murthy, Finance Ministry sources said.
"The Finance Minister will discuss steps to boost industrial output and promote economic growth," they said.
The industrial output growth rate dipped to nine-month low of 5.6% in May due to poor show of manufacturing and mining sectors and lower offtake of capital goods.
Besides global factors, the slowdown has been attributed to Reserve Bank's tight monetary policy. The central bank has raised its key policy rates ten times since March 2010 to check inflation which is above nine%.
The government, sources said, is also concerned about slowdown in investments, particularly the inflow of FDI.
Measures to attract more foreign and domestic investment are likely to figure prominently during the meeting.
FDI has slumped by about 9% to $6.5 billion in the first four months of the calendar from $7.14 billion in the same month last year.
Several economic reforms initiatives which include raising of the FDI limit in insurance sector, allowing FDI in retail and revamp of the direct and indirect tax system are pending.
The government had projected that India's GDP growth would be between 8.75% and 9.25% this fiscal. However, the Reserve Bank lowered the growth projection for the current fiscal to 8%, lower than the 8.5% recorded in the previous fiscal.
Global ratings agency Fitch has also lowered its growth forecast for India in 2011 to 7.7% from 8.3% previously.
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