New Delhi - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday asserted that India "can and will survive" the global financial crisis and sustain an 8-per-cent economic growth. "In a globalized world, we cannot pretend that we are not affected by the economic crisis," Singh said while addressing a conference in New Delhi, adding "however, we can and will survive this crisis and emerge stronger."
Exuding confidence that India had "resources and wisdom" to deal with the crisis, Singh said all instruments of public policy - fiscal, monetary, exchange rate and public investment - will be deployed to ensure growth and entrepreneurship and tackle the adverse impact of the slowdown.
"You have my assurance that despite the international environment, we have the capacity and the ability to sustain the growth rate of about 8 per cent," Singh, an economist by training, said.
India has been one of the best performers in the world economy in recent years, growing 9.2 per cent in 2007 and 9.6 per cent in 2006.
The central Reserve Bank of India had said several weeks ago that the country's economy may slow to 7.5 per cent in the year ending March 31.
Referring to the G 20 Summit in Washington which he attended last week, Singh said he told world leaders that developed countries had an important role to play in finding solutions to the crisis.
"Global problems require global solutions. This is the most important lesson of the past century for the next. But global institutions of governance must be made more inclusive and representative. The voice of the developing world must be heard in the high councils of global decision-making," he said.
"Our century will be shaped by how we respond to the global economic crisis today. If nations look only inwards and imagine they can solve their problems on their own, they will fail," he said.
"The world has become more integrated and inter-dependent. In both good and bad, in prosperity and peril, in opportunity and crisis we must recognize the new inter-dependencies. No nation is an island unto itself," Singh added.
