Outlook cloudy but India will grow: PM

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the Indian economy has the resilience to sustain a growth momentum in the range of nine per cent in the medium-term though the short-term outlook looks "cloudy" due to the impact of global economic crisis.

"The short-term outlook is cloudy but I am confident that the Indian economy has the resilience to sustain its growth momentum in the medium-term," Singh said while addressing an august gathering of top Indian and Japanese business leaders in Tokyo.

Singh, on the second day of this three-day official visit to Japan, said the "great turbulence in the world economy" has "chocked credit flows and predictably spilled over to the stock market.

"We have to prevent the liquidity crisis from becoming a crisis of confidence in the international monetary and financial system," he said at the luncheon organized by Nippon Keidanren, the Japan-India Business Cooperation Committee and the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

An eminent economist himself, the 76-year-old Singh said the global nature of the crisis calls for a coordinated global response.

"We hope to build on India's many strengths as an emerging market economy that is now ready for rapid growth. Over the past four years, we have averaged nine per cent GDP growth per year.

"It will slow down in the current year because of conditions in the global economy. Once normalcy returns, we can regain the nine per cent trajectory," Singh said confidently, assuring foreign investors about the stability of India's economy.