India's growth rate to bounce back: Pranab

Addressing a press conference at the end of his Washington visit to attend the annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee sought to ease concerns over a slowdown in India's economic growth rate.

Exuding confidence that the Indian economy would ride on its strong fundamentals and resilience to take a higher growth trajectory,  Mukherjee pointed out that even though the latest figures reflect that India's growth rate has come down, the country still remains the second-fastest growing economy in the G-20, next only to China.

He said in 2008-09 India's GDP came down to 6.9 per cent but quickly recovered in the next two years moving up to 8. 4 per cent.

"Again it has come down to 6.9 per cent, but the resilience, basic fundamentals of Indian economy, which everybody recognise; high rate of savings, substantial investment coming from the domestic savings itself,'' the finance minister said.

He said the basic fundamentals and resilience of the economy clearly demonstrated that the Indian economy would grow briskly.

He said growth would also be aided by a huge domestic market, growing purchasing power, a growing middle class, the domestic demand-driven factors to provide the stimulus to the growth elements in Indian economy is very strong.