Pranab confident of over 8.5% growth

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today exuded confidence that the economy would grow by more than 8.5 per cent in 2010-11, despite partial roll back of stimulus measures.

Addressing heads of Indian Missions here, Mukherjee said the economy is likely to continue the high growth trajectory in the coming years as well. Mukherjee said fundamentals of the Indian economy were strong and explained to the heads of Indian Missions how India coped with economic challenges. Indian economic growth slowed down to 6.7 per cent during 2008-09 from nine per cent in the previous three years after the deepening global financial crisis hit the economy.

To blunt the impact of global crisis, the Government provided stimulus to the economy by cutting taxes and stepping up public expenditure.

This catapulted economic growth to 7.4 per cent last fiscal, despite just 0.2 per cent farm growth because of drought in many parts of the country.

In fact, the finance minister expressed confidence that the economy would grow faster than 8.5 per cent. The data for the first quarter of this financial year will be released on Tuesday.

The figures will actually show whether the economy faced any adverse impact of partial withdrawal of economic stimulus.