6.5% growth target looks difficult to achieve: PM

With global economy not doing well, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said it may not be possible to achieve 6.5 per cent growth target envisaged for this fiscal in February.

However, he hoped that the economy will rebound as the Government was taking all steps to boost investments.

“I would not like to make a forecast of what our growth will be in the year 2013-14. The IMF has recently reduced its earlier projection of growth rates for all countries including India, for 2013,” he said at a function here.

“We had targeted 6.5 per cent growth at the time the Budget was presented. But it looks as if it will be lower than that,” he said.

Pinning hopes on the agriculture sector, the Prime Minister said plentiful rains so far will help revive the demand in rural areas which will contribute to stronger industrial performance in due course.

“Industrial growth has not yet recovered. However, I am happy to say that agriculture looks well set to show a good performance,” he said.

The country’s economic growth has hit a decade low of 5 per cent last fiscal on account of poor performance of farm, manufacturing and mining sectors.

Average growth rate

Highlighting the UPA regime’s performance, Singh said the average growth rate during eight years (2004-05 to 2012-13) was 8.2 per cent. This is much better than 5.7 per cent achieved in the previous eight years.

He also said that the real wages have risen at a much faster rate of 6.8 per cent per year in the 11th Plan Period compared to an average of 1.1 per cent annually in the 10 years preceding it.

Emphasising that the percentage of population below poverty line declined at a much faster rate of 2 per cent between 2004-05 and 2011-12, he said that the rate however was just 0.75 per cent before 2004-05.

“I think this is a record that any government can be proud of. I agree we have had one bad year. I assure you we will get out of it...I assure you we will leave no stone unturned to ensure that our economy rebounds,” he said.

Current account deficit

Expressing concern over high current account deficit (CAD), he said the government will use all policy instruments available — fiscal, monetary and supply side interventions — to ensure reduction in deficit, which has touched 4.7 per cent last financial year.

“Ideally we should bring the CAD down to 2.5 per cent of our GDP. It is clearly not possible to do this in one year, but I expect that CAD in 2013-14 will be much lower than the 4.7 per cent level recorded last year. It will decline further next year,” he said.

He exuded confidence that the Government will meet the fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal.

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