Mumbai: A global slowdown could lower India's economic growth rate by up to half a percentage point, deputy chairman of the planning commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said today.

The statement comes close on the heels of a projection by the prime minister's economic panel of an 8.9 per cent growth for 2007-08, and an even lower 8.5 per cent next year.

The prime minister's economic advisory panel is headed by former Reserve Bank governor C Rangarajan.

"On a basis of 9 per cent average growth rate, if there is a global slowdown, maximum impact on Indian economy could be half a per cent," Ahluwalia told reporters at a business conference.

Finance minister P Chidambaram had also, earlier, spoken of a likely fall in India's economic growth rate in case of a recession in the United States and a consequent decline in global demand and output growth in 2008.

The planning commission had last year projected an annual average growth rate of 9 per cent for India between 2007-08 and 2011-12.