India Ready For Further Policy Changes, Says Chidambaram

India is ready for more economic policy changes, said Union finance minister P Chidambaram yesterday. The budget has been passed and it is a good sign. There are differences but overriding the differences, we have been able to reconcile it, Chidambaram told Reuters Financial Television in an interview.

We are also looking at other aspects of economic policy like bringing down interest rates, expanding credit, putting money into infrastructure. I think we are dealing with both supply side as well as demand side, he said.

Chidambaram was in the southern Japanese city to attend the Asian Development Bank's annual meeting.

On India's burgeoning foreign exchange reserves, Chidambaram said: We have to find ways and means to use these reserves which means we will have to liberalise imports. More capital goods imports would be good.

Chidambaram said one issue on which the government needed to act quickly was the large subsidies given to the oil sector. He added that one option would be to raise domestic prices while with cutting import duties on crude oil and petroleum products.

However, he pointed out: It is difficult to lower import duties right now because the budget assumed a certain amount of revenue. Now if there are compensatory duties elsewhere, then one can think of lowering duties. I think we should go for a mix of options.