Govt will take decisive action to push growth to 8 pc: PM

Terming the 5 per cent GDP expansion as clearly disappointing, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today made a case for speedy and decisive actions to achieve 8 per cent economic growth.
Addressing the CII AGM here, Singh said the government will further relax the FDI policy and take steps to bring down inflation.
Singh also said India can get back to the high growth path of 8 per cent even while dealing with problems like corruption, bureaucratic inertia and the difficulties in managing coalition.
"Growth has slowed to 5 per cent, which is clearly disappointing ... We are seeing temporary downturn, partly due to global factors. We can get back to 8 per cent growth rate," Singh said, adding that government will take speedy and decisive action to push growth.

Observing that the high fiscal deficit is unacceptable, Singh said "We are determined to do everything possible to achieve the fiscal deficit target".
As per the road map, the government aims to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by 2016-17.

As regards the Current Account Deficit (CAD), he expressed hope that it would moderate in the current financial year from a high of 5 per cent recorded in 2012-13.
The government, he said, will take all steps to ensure that foreign fund flows remain strong and restore the macro-economic balance.
"Corruption is a problem. Bureaucratic inertia is a problem. Managing coalition is not easy. But these problems have not arisen suddenly. They were all there even earlier when the economy was growing at 8 per cent", Singh added.