Kamath confident about 8 per cent plus growth

"Investments to the tune of $750 billion are in the pipeline. Unlike in the past, a large part of the projects is being funded by corporates through cash accruals. So far, the profitability of corporates has not dropped," he said explaining the reasons for his confidence in the growth rate.

Addressing a press conference on the eve of CII national council meeting here on Wednesday, Kamath said the fundamentals of the economy have not changed  and  the investment pipeline was intact. Investment flow would be impacted if the profitability of the corporates dropped and it would take some more time to see whether such a thing would happen."  

According to Kamath, the share of manufacturing sector in the GDP would probably increase to 25 per cent by 2020, though infrastructure was going to be a key challenge. However, "we are witnessing a large push on the infrastructure front".

Stating that there was a need to create over 10 million jobs every year in the next five years, Kamath said deep interventions were required for skill development among the people right from the school level. The CII would work with state governments in this regard. 

He said that the external ratings of the Indian economy would not have much impact as the annual borrowings from abroad were not much.