India to return to 8-9% growth in 1-2 years: Zoellick

India to return to 8-9% growth in 1-2 years: Zoellick
The Economic Times, December 05, 2009, Page 7

Our Bureau NEW DELHI

INDIA could return to a higher growth trajectory of 8-9 % in two years, but it needs to invest more in infrastructure for sustaining such growth, World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Friday.

Winding up his four-day visit here that included meetings with prime minister Manmohan Singh, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and other key government functionaries, he said: “India has emerged from the economic crisis with a clear vision of what it will take to accelerate back to earlier growth rates and beyond”.

The country’s 11th five year plan ending in 2012 has set a growth target of 9%. However, GDP growth slipped to 6.7% in 2008-09, after three years of over 9% growth, in the aftermath of the global crisis.

The strong fiscal and monetary policies of India had helped counter a decline in exports and withstand some of the external shocks from the food, fuel and financial crisis, he said. He added the World Bank would look at giving assistance to large consolidated projects rather than individual ones.

“What we are now trying to do is see if we can have some billion-dollar- plus interventions to try to support the reforms not only financially but at developing institutional capacity and figure out how we can connect other sources of funding, including some private sector funding from India and abroad,” he said.

Mr Zoellick announced a support of $ 1 billion for helping clean the Ganges. Earlier, the finance ministry said the World Bank is likely to triple its lending to the country to $US 7 billion this year. The World Bank has expressed interest in the development of the Eastern corridor on the lines of the Western corridor for which the governments of India and Japan are working together. “I saw increased discussion about longer-term investments in railway production including in the Eastern corridor and so I wanted to suggest that we might be able to partner with India on these issues and there has been a receptivity there,” Zoellick said.

On giving more voice to developing countries, he said the Bank would like to achieve a closer parity of towards 50:50 in terms of developed and developing countries.